NRL's ‘Voice Against Violence’ reaches out to Tongan men [1]
Monday, September 24, 2018 - 21:55
An NRL initiative called ‘Voice Against Violence’ is encouraging men in Tonga to open up about the problems of domestic violence in their community.
Launched by the NRL in Australia in 2013 with branches in Fiji and Papua New Guinea, ‘Voice Against Violence’ seeks to involve males in speaking about domestic violence. The programme implements celebrity infomercials, team talks, workshops and the distribution of education kits to men and boys.
An NRL statement issued last week, said that the program was being expanded into Tonga.
“The NRL visited Tonga at the start of September to address the Tongan Government and a number of local organisations who are eager to support the NRL in delivering the anti-violence model.”
“Those organisations include; Families Free Of Violence (FFOV), Legal Aid, Women's Crisis Centre (WCC), Ma'a Fafine Mo E Famili (For women and families), Tonga National Centre for Women and Children (TNCWC), TALIFA and Ministry of Internal Affairs – Women's Division ( MIA).”
NRL Community Manager and former Toa Samoa player, Steve Meredith said that the program would help break male taboo of talking about domestic violence.
Steve Meredith said, "In Tonga violence is a taboo topic, as it is across many communities across Australia, and one of the key things to address it is to firstly acknowledge that it's an issue. And one challenge, in particular, that Tonga has faced is having that conversation with men.
"With the success of the roll-out of the program here in Australia, in PNG and Fiji, we've seen that the program has definitely had the ability to start these conversations with men and engage them in a unique way that our game does,
"Women have been leading this charge for quite a while in Tonga so for our expert partners they were impressed and almost brought to tears that now men are starting to have these conversations."