Week Without Violence

This is the vision of the global movement of YWCAs. This is what the YWCA Week Without Violence works to achieve.

The YWCA Week Without Violence is annual worldwide campaign that takes place in the third week of October to encourage communities to think and act towards a world without violence. Throughout the week activities focus on raising awareness, promoting attitude change and enabling individuals and organisations to begin positive actions towards ending violence in their communities.

Related articles:

• A Week without Violence - Dare to Imagine

• Are you creating safe spaces in this YWCA Week without Violence?

YWCA Week Without Violence activities around the world:

• YWCA of Canada
• YWCA USA

YWCA Week Without Violence ideas

Here are a few ideas for YWCA Week Without Violence activities:

• Host a “Take back the night” march for women’s right to walk the streets at night without fear.
• Launch a programme teaching school children conflict resolution through creative arts and play techniques.
• Get a group of women together to plan a campaign against female genital mutilation.
• Form a support group for women who have lost loved ones in a war, or have been violated during wartime.
• Hold a conflict resolution workshop for couples. Hold one for families and for teenagers as well.
• Hold a workshop at a college on preventing date rape and other partner abuse.
• Hold yoga and meditation classes to help individuals build inner peace.
• Organise a campaign to lobby your government for better protection for victims of abuse, rape, trafficking, female genital mutilation or any other area not properly dealt with in your country’s legal system.
• Develop a programme providing trafficked women with information, protection and counseling.
• Hold self esteem workshops.
• Host a play, dance, or concert based on a peace theme.
• Host an art, poetry or song contest based on a peace theme.
• Convince your work or church colleagues to take the Peace Challenge with you.
• Provide a space for women who have survived and triumphed over violence to share their stories.
• Develop a programme that teaches boys and men non-violent conflict resolution skills. Develop a similar programme for girls and women

Working with media

• Learn as much as you can about the newspaper, radio or TVstation that you plan to approach – who is their target audience? Which section of the newspaper or programme would be most interested in your activities (e.g. women’s section, international affairs)? Who is the person in charge of that section or programme?
• Call the journalist or editor in charge of the section, provide details of the event, provide ideas for possible story angles and convince them it is newsworthy and worth attending (e.g. involvement of high profile people, photo opportunities).
• Follow up with a media release (faxed or emailed) and marked to their attention, which confirms all the details of the event.
• Send a reminder one to two weeks before the event, and then the day before. You can also phone the journalist/editor to confirm that someone will be coming.
• Ensure you have a space for media personnel attending, and someone available to facilitate interviews and answer questions.
• Make your press releases are short, and to the point. Highlight what makes your event interesting and newsworthy – Will high profile people be involved? Will a speaker be saying something controversial? Is there a photo opportunity? What is the relationship of the local YWCA to a larger event happening around the world? Give all relevant information – who, what, where, when, why, how – and ensure there is a contact person listed (name, telephone, email address, mailing address). Include a catchy headline and leading sentence that will attract the attention of the person you are sending it to (you may need to change this for different media outlets)
• Explore all areas for free publicity such as public service announcements, bulletin boards, community radio and letters to the editor.
• Ask a local radio station to cover your event or broadcast live from your event.
• This is a great opportunity not to be missed – provide journalists with a media kit upon arrival, which includes a media release (updated from the previous one sent), and a background sheet on the YWCA (what does it do locally and globally, what are some of its key achievements and impact, what is its outreach, who are its leaders)

Please share your ideas with us by emailing worldoffice@worldywca.org