Is YWCA Girls Leadership for abuse prevention?

The Vancouver’s YWCA just got $260,000 from the federal government for a “girl’s leadership program” to be offered in Surrey, BC. The program is called “That’s Just Me” and aims to teach girls how to be more resilient and about healthy relationships.

I suspect that this funding was designed to address a more pressing problem in this particular community and that is gender-based violence.

This has been a problem for many years. Still I am sad that we mask the problem in the language of “leadership” for “girls.” I suppose it’s not popular to talk about a program to help train girls to stand up to men so that these men will learn that treating females badly is not acceptable. I just hope that the men are invited to the training because I am not sure it’s right or effective to ask the less-powerful or abused to carry this heavy burden.

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