Internationally recognized speaker Dr. Jackson Katz to speak in Nelson in May
By Contributor
Dr. Jackson Katz, internationally recognized for his work in gender violence prevention education in schools, the sports culture and the military, as well as for his pioneering work in critical media literacy, is bringing his ground-breaking expertise to Nelson for two days of presentations and workshops, May 9-10, at the Prestige Inn Lakeside Resort.
The weekend engagement is sponsored by the Side by Side Project.
An educator, author, filmmaker, and social theorist, Katz is co-founder of the multiracial, mixed-gender Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) program at Northeastern University’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society.
Founded in 1993, MVP was one of the first programs to use a “bystander” model for gender violence prevention; Katz is one of the key architects of the bystander approach.
Today, MVP is the most widely utilized sexual and domestic violence prevention program in college and professional athletics. It has been implemented by a quarter of the teams in the NFL, a number of Major League Baseball clubs, NASCAR, and many other sports organizations.
Since 1997 Katz has directed the first worldwide gender violence prevention program in the history of the United States Marine Corps. MVP trainings have been held with U.S. Army personnel in Iraq; the U.S. Navy is currently piloting MVP in four sites around the world; and Katz has served as a subject matter expert and consultant for the U.S. Air Force.
Katz’s award-winning educational video Tough Guise, his featured appearances in the films Wrestling With Manhood and Spin The Bottle, and his lectures in the U.S. and around the world have brought his insights into masculinity and gender violence to millions of college and high school students as well as professionals in education, human services, public health and law enforcement.
The weekend begins Friday with a dinner and presentation open to the public.
The evening begins at 6 p.m.
Saturday is scheduled for a full day of workshops and training for anyone involved in supporting victims, including counsellors, teachers, police officers, physicians, law enforcement officers, victim services personnel, and health care providers.
The cost of each session is $30.
The weekend is sponsored by the Side by Side Project, which is organized by the Nelson Community Services Centre.
The Side by Side Project is an initiative of the NCSC partnership with Community and Police based Specialized Victim Services.
The Solicitor General of British Columbia funds the grant.
The Side by Side project seeks to provide our region with learning opportunities and prevention strategies around the issue of violence against women.
In October a series of workshops and presentations in local high schools introduced students to gender violence prevention strategies to examine and challenge assumptions, attitudes and beliefs that allow for a culture of violence.
Workshops, presentations and interactive discussions will help bring together women and men in local and regional communities to discuss and plan how we can work together to design and implement lasting social change through effective gender violence prevention.
All Project participants will be introduced to a creative new way of conceptualizing the role of men in what historically has been considered “women’s issues”.
Instead of seeing sexual and domestic violence as women’s issues that some “good guys” help out with, it will be explored as an issue that all men should be educated and active, especially men in positions of family, community, professional and political leadership.
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