Partnering up to stop gender-based violence

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a serious issue that affects everyone in Canada — but especially young women and those in marginalized communities, including 2SLGBTQQIA+ people, Black and racialized women, Indigenous peoples and women with disabilities. Since 2021, Banfield has partnered with Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE) to develop “It’s Not Just,” a national youth awareness campaign that uses an inclusive and intersectional approach to bring to light the many, often-dismissed, forms of GBV and shift the behaviours and actions of people across Canada.

But addressing such a multifaceted issue with the respect it deserves means looking beyond our own insights and talking to those who are primarily affected. That’s why, over the course of our work together, we’ve been proud to connect WAGE with its many partners, which include youth-led, youth-serving organizations representing the communities most at risk of being subjected to GBV. Through the process of selecting partners, creating partnership agreements and helping foster partner-client relationships, we’ve been able to collaborate with YWCA Canada, Wisdom2Action, White Ribbon, The Circle Education, Platform, FOXY, SMASH, Interval House, Gris Montreal, Centre for Sexuality, Queer Yukon, Dawn Canada, Possibility Seeds, and We Worthy Women.

One example of the effectiveness of this multi-perspective partnership is our recent work on WAGE’s It’s Not Just learning modules for youth. To develop a series of five learning modules teaching teens and young adults about a variety of GBV-related topics, we not only teamed up with WAGE and its partners, but a group of youth leaders from across Canada, too. Combining the advice, knowledge and lived experience from both the target audience and subject matter experts with our ability to write and design engaging and accessible content, we created a learning tool that makes it easy for youth to not only protect themselves, but also those around them, from GBV.

In addition to the modules, WAGE’s network of partners and youth leaders also helped shape the [It’s Not Just You] digital destination. Compiled from thousands of GBV-related online searches across Canada, [It’s Not Just You] uses real search engine data to find the country’s most-asked questions about GBV and provide thoughtful peer-led support and advice guided by WAGE partners and youth leaders.

Throughout both of these projects, the partners we’ve worked with have been instrumental in ensuring everything we create is as effective and relevant as possible. And with these tools now available to youth across Canada, we’re one step closer to creating a world without GBV. Together.

Want to see where our partnership can take your message? Get in touch.