16 DAYS OF ACTION
16 Day of Action Awareness Raising Events.
16 Days of Action against Violence against Women runs from 25th November (International Day against Violence against Women) to 10th December (International Human rights Day).
The 16 Days of Action Campaign is an international event, it began in 1991 and now has over 1,000 organisations from 139 countries participating.
In 1999, the United Nations officially recognised November 25th as International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
The aims of the campaign are to;
- Highlight the prevalence of violence against women.
- To raise awareness of the issue as a Human Rights issue at Local, National and International levels.
The campaign also aims to show the solidarity of women around the world and to work towards the elimination of all forms of violence against women.
This awareness campaign has been funded by COSC.
This year is Womens Aids Dundalks 5th year taking part in the International campaign.
Each year we focus our awareness raising around a different theme. This year we decided our theme would be to turn society’s focus from the woman and what she is going to doing about her situation and shine the spotlight on society and ask “what are YOU doing about it.
We are running a Teaser campaign from the start of November, we’ve placed a number of posters around town with statements such as “What are YOU doing about it” and “Be part of the solution, not the problem” and “It hurts everyone”.
We hope this will spark people’s interest and generate conversation.
Then on November 23rd we will launch our 16 Days of Action in County Museum and it will also be our reveal, we will then replace the posters with the reveal and they will remain for the16 days.
“Domestic violence,
What are YOU doing about it”?
We have also put together a work shop on healthy relationships and it will be running in local secondary schools during the 16 days. We hope to deliver it to at least 200 students.
Awareness raising talks will be held in the community office with heads of departments and supervisors in attendance, with the hope that they carry the information back to their organisations.
An information stall will be set up in DKIT on 24th November and staff will be handing out our helpline number and white ribbons.
On our annual day of action on 25th November, we will be erecting a marquee at the town centre and we will be showing domestic violence adverts from around the world, inviting passer bys to stop and watch while handing out our helpline numbers on bookmarks and stickers.
A coffee mooring will be held in the on 2nd December, local community groups are invited along.
Also we are continuing our White Ribbon Campaign; we are doing a big push on this campaign this year and hope to get as many men involved as possible. We have targeted men involved in sport, the media and politicians and are looking forward to seeing the response we receive. We intend to make this a part of our annual events as we feel getting men involved in the 16 days of action will help in making it a community response when it comes to condoning violence against women.
Update on 16 days of Action.
The launch went really well on November 23rd, we were delighted to have Minister Ahern launch our 16 Days of Action and it was well attended.
We are also delighted to have Rob Kearney endorsing our white ribbon campaign, which has been a huge sucess so far with over 1000 white ribbons gone out into the public so far.
Our day of action at the square was indeed cold but very worth while, we handed out bookmark and white ribbons to th egeneral public and people were very enthusiastic in their support.
For more information please contact us through the contact us link at the top of the page.
