workshop reports

What We Learned in Toronto

In Toronto, CCLOW co-sponsored a day and a half workshop with Beat the Street Women's Committee. Participants were women working in the field of literacy-- students, tutors, workers and volunteers. Women came to the workshop for many reasons:

• to gain insight into women's feelings about violence.
• to learn how to deal with violence.
• to find out about alternative educational strategies.
• to share what we know about violence against women.
• to forge alliances between women.
• to plan for a working group to keep connected.
• to find out about resources available for women.

The workshop was participatory and based on women's experiences with violence and how to cope with violence in our programs as well as in our own lives. The facilitator for the workshop was a literacy worker with a great deal of experience in dealing with violence and helping prevent violence in her program. Two safe workers participated in the workshop and gave on-the-spot counselling or spoke with women.

We also painted a mural and T-shirts as a way to help us be creative in a different way and to express ourselves without words. It was fun, relaxing, relieved stress and helped women to get to know each other. As a way of starting to talk about the issues of women and violence, and how it affects our learning, the Women's Committee of Beat the Street made the presentation "Breaking the Cycle of Violence." This multi-media presentation, with poetry reading, body sculpting, and a video, is based on the thoughts and words of the members of the Women's Committee of Beat the Street.

What We Learned

• Women have a different idea from men about what we think "violence" is. Women mentioned physical, mental, psychological and verbal abuse. The medical, welfare and justice systems and institutions reinforce the abuse of women.

• Outward physical scars are not the only ones women have when abused. Violence manipulates women, and makes us feel powerless and dependent.

• Violence has an adverse effect on women's learning. Violence isolates women, and they become withdrawn, lose concentration, do not attend classes, have low self-esteem. Violence creates dependency, makes it unsafe to do school work at home, and as a result, women are unable to reach their full potential.