Chris Best

White Ribbon Day - end men's violence against women

25th November 2024

We remain committed in Lewisham to ensuring that our Borough is a place where those who experience any crime under the Violence Against Women and Girls umbrella have their experiences validated, are empowered to recover, and are supported within our inclusive and diverse community. We carried out extensive consultation before approving our Domestic Violence and Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy 2021-2026; our robust five year plan contains the learning, and sets out our approach to eradicating abuse within our communities. The strategy has been shaped through interviews, workshops and consultations with domestic abuse survivors living in Lewisham, local professionals, and residents. This has led us to create five key priorities to combat Violence Against Women and Girls VAWG, and sees us build upon our already strong relationships across the Borough to ensure that our response to this issue includes expertise captured from many different perspectives:















Prevent: Preventing violence and abuse through early intervention and education.















Protect: Providing support that keeps individuals and their families safe from harm.















Recover: Providing longer-term support to enable recovery following abuse.















Pursue: Holding perpetrators to account whilst providing opportunity for change and support.















Partnership: Working in partnership across agencies and with the community, to ensure our response to abuse is integrated, innovative and inclusive.















I am always proud to support White Ribbon Day as this is the first day of 16 days of activism against gender-based violence. White Ribbon encourages men to show their support for women experiencing violence.