Efforts to Enhance Education About Gender-Based Violence: A Teacher Workshop and Toolkit

Abstract

Sahra' is the Somali word for flower (Kusow, 2023).On May 26, 2023, our Windsor, Ontario, community lost a vibrant and beautiful flower when Sahra Bulle was killed.Two weeks later, her body was found and first degree murder charges were filed against her estranged husband.Her death, at the time, marked the region's fourth femicide in two years (Maru, 2023).Hiatus House, a local organization that provides resources, emergency shelter, and support for women and children who have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV), is prepared to accept 250 women and 160 children annually; in its 2022 fiscal year, however, it admitted 375 women and 180 children (Maru, 2023).These figures are indicative of a growing prevalence of IPV and femicide, which is among the most extreme manifestations of gender-based violence across Ontario and Canada.In 2021-2022, there were 52 femicides in 52 weeks in Ontario alone.The women and girls killed ranged in age from eight to 88 years old (OAITH, 2023).Across Canada, 184 women and girls were killed by mostly male violence in 2022, a number that has steadily increased from 148 in 2019, to 160 in 2020, to 173 in 2021 (Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability, 2022).In February 2023, our team of researchers held a professional development workshop to train teachers on effective pedagogy about gender-based violence.We also produced a teaching toolkit with lesson plans, assignments, guidance notes, and other teaching materials that address a range of gender-based violence issues, all directly aligned with expectations in the Ontario, Canada, Grade 8-12 curriculum, which is aimed at children aged between 12 and 18.The workshop and toolkit were derived from our research findings related to