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Family Violence Prevention and Education Committee Report: Latin-American Community Council (L.A.C.C.), Vancouver, B.C.

In 1992 a group of Latin-American workers concerned about family violence got together to look at this problem, especially men's violence against their partners. Their plan was to unite forces, exchange ideas and review existing material in order to find the gaps, and to start to inform, educate and create awareness among the members of our community at large. In this way we began the process of "Breaking The Silence".

The group went through an intense internal process while defining our philosophy and establishing our principles. This took a long time, during which we lost those members who were not comfortable with the philosophy or who were too busy, and we ended as a core group of four people, three women and one man. During this process we were able to create a poster and started to send articles to some of the Latin-American newspapers.

Up to this point, the group had been made up mainly of women, pushing men to change. It became evident that men had to be recruited to start to carry the message into our community, that message being that violence is both illegal and, most important, unacceptable.

In 1993 the group altered its focus from women and the family to services for men. This came about after much discussion and our feeling that if we continued to look after women's needs only we would be replicating work that was being done. The three main ideas that helped us to refocus on men were: 1. The root of the problem is men's violence towards women. Helping women was always going to be reacting to men's violence, rather than trying to help stop the violence at its source; 2. The responsibility for change would continue to be placed on women rather than their partners and families; and 3. there were no services for Latin-American men. In looking at violence our perspective became more holistic, which also fit more comfortably with our community's philosophy on the family.

The three main ideas that helped us to refocus on men were: 1. The root of the problem is men's violence towards women... 2. The responsibility for change would continue to be placed on women rather than their partners and families; and 3. there were no services for Latin-American men.

We started by collecting as much material as possible, selecting those ideas which might help men in our community change their ideas and attitudes towards women, and challenge their tactics of control and the use of force and violence to impose that control. The idea of a workshop was then born in which we wanted to both collect more information from our community and also to plant the idea of non-violence and equality between men and women.

In this workshop, (Cambio de Paso/Changing step) which was held in May 1994, we explored gender roles by separating men and women and asking their ideas about the opposite sex. We then brought the two groups together, so they could compare and gain different knowledge from each other, in this way challenging their stereotypes of each other. We also explored the power and control issues from our families of origin. This was quite emotional for some people as it brought them in touch with their childhood experiences and pain. Fiona Begg, who is a bilingual lawyer, explained the legal implication of assaulting one's partner.

We felt with this workshop that potentially we were opening up a can of worms and that we had to follow up within the community at large. We also recognized that there were no resources to which we could refer Spanish speaking men who were lost in the system.

From all the material we reviewed we produced a self-evaluation for men (Solo para Hombres) to help them redefine behavior which they had perceived as normal, as abusive behavior. This self-evaluation would also be of use to people working in our community, to start to define abusive behavior as such and to expand our definition of abuse.

When we introduced this self-evaluation to the community and front line workers within the Latin-American Community Council, there was a vocal backlash and reaction to defining violence as violence and the push was on to water down our definition of violent behavior. As a result of this we were invited to an interview on the Latin radio program "Latino Soy" on 1270 AM, which broadcasts to our community on a weekly basis.

We at this time decided to produce a more in depth pamphlet in Spanish directed towards men, which was to be used in a second workshop for the Latin-American workers. The other outcome of our work was to lobby the Attorney General's Department for funds to set up a group for men who have been convicted of assaulting their partners. This was accomplished under the umbrella of Family Services of Greater Vancouver's Family Violence Intervention Project. The group ran from March till June for sixteen weeks. It was co-led by a female/male team in Spanish, both of whom are members of this working committee. We are pushing, so far unsuccessfully, for new funding to make this group a permanent resource for the Latin American community.

Most recently we ran a workshop "Camino a la Responsabilidad/ Towards Responsibility" for the Latin-American workers, bringing together all of our previous work which focuses on community workers who deal directly with families. We introduced our new pamphlet and gave some practical tools which can be used when working with families where violence is evident and also helping them become aware that violence could be an issue when working with any family. We also introduced a video "DE TAL PALO, TAL ASTILLA / LIKE FATHER LIKE SON". In this video three Latino fathers talk about the long, hard process they underwent to change their ideas of what it meant to be a man and send a message to other men. Ordering information for this video is included at the end of this article.

We as a committee are just beginning; we know there is much to be done. We are all workers with a personal commitment to this cause and hope to continue working towards the end of violence against women.

John Day, Esther Frid, Sylvana Yeomans, Marilyn Maiza

For more information, contact Esther Frid at
Family Services of Greater Vancouver, East Office.
Phone: (604) 874-2938, fax: (604) 874-9898

DE TAL PALO, TAL ASTILLA LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON (Video in Spanish with English subtitles)

In Canada, Alfredo, Luis and Victor have had problems with the law because of violent behaviour towards their families - families that they love. In this video they talk about the long, hard process they underwent to change their ideas of what it meant to be a man.

Working with counsellors from the Latin American Community Council, they learned how the model they had absorbed in their childhood was not appropriate in dealing with family relationships today. They were helped to change that model for an understanding that led them to achieve increased communication and more respectful and caring behaviour with their wives and children. Interview with their wives testify to the validity of their changes and the positive implications of those changes for their children.

Suggested use: Men's groups, counsellors, multi-cultural groups, university students, and any other class or group interested in cultural perspectives on family and interpersonal communications.

For ordering information, contact: Media Network Society, 666 Herald Street, Studio A, Victoria, B.C. V8W 1S7. Telephone: (604) 360-1213 Fax: (604) 360-2033