Shining a light on violence against women

Each year in late November/ early December, people are encouraged to display purple ribbons to help raise awareness about violence against women.

This year, as part of an initiative making its tri-county debut, people are invited to shine a purple light on the same issue during the month of November.

The purple ribbon campaign goes from Nov. 25 to Dec. 10 and has been held annually for years. This more recent initiative – billed as Shine a Light on Woman Abuse – was developed by the London Abused Women’s Centre and is being held in southwestern Nova Scotia for the first time.

“It’s to raise awareness, again, about violence against women and the services that are available to them,” said Lisa Newell-Bain, executive director of Juniper House in Yarmouth, one of the organizations involved in the effort. “It’s for the whole month of November and the idea is to light things purple, so it’s calling attention to the issue.”

Bernadette MacDonald, executive director of the Tri-County Women’s Centre, said the abuse of women tends to be private “so we’re really encouraging the community to make it public by shining a light – a purple light – in their place of employment, in their home environment, wherever they feel they can do best.”

The colour purple is a symbol of courage, survival and honour and has come to symbolize the fight to end woman abuse.

SHINE A LIGHT CAMPAIGN

The Shine a Light campaign is quite big in London, Ont., the city where it originated about a half-dozen years ago, MacDonald said.

“The city of London, there are areas that are just all purple,” she said, “and it’s growing all the time.”

In Canada, on average, a woman dies every six days from domestic violence – that is, they die at the hands of someone they know, MacDonald said.