ZONTA targets men in fight against violence on Women & Girls
“Show Love” seminar was held on Wednesday February 11, 2015 at the upper floor of the UP's Cineplex and was attended by a large number of young men drawn from the secondary schools of the Virgin Islands (VI) as well as the tertiary institutions.
Several interesting topics saw a myriad of responses and in the space given to ZONTA the issue of domestic violence was a wave of discussion. According to ZONTA’s President Mrs Nona Vanterpool-Bonelli the young men were brought to a place of reality of the harsh consequences of being negatively abusive to women not only because of the pains it causes the opposite sex but the consequences they can land themselves in such as having to be before the courts, being incarcerated and such like.
“What I thought was even more impacting on them was when the question was put to them of how would they have felt should a man ever put hand on their girl child when they get to the stage of having such… that was a reality check for them,” said Mrs Vanterpool-Bonelli.
And while the seminar targeted the young men she said that it also created an atmosphere for all the facilitators to do a self-check owing to the fact that, based on the information shared by the young men, most adults of society today are disconnected from the world of the youths today.
“We as adults need to be able to level with these young people. They don’t see us as approachable and that is one thing that we as adults have to work on. Our young men must feel comfortable to come to use at any level. They need to see and know that we are there for them, we can assist them, we are the business people of this community and we are opened to doing things for them to keep them out of trouble,” she said.
She explained that while the seminar was a one day, one off event for the young men ZONTA in collaboration with FTM is now in the process of looking at ways that they can together continue to reach out to the young men. “We can’t leave them like that until next year again or what happened on Wednesday might very well count for nothing, we will be getting those young men in some other form or fashion, they need us and we have to find a way to show that we are there for them like we say,” said Mrs Vanterpool-Bonelli.
As an organization, ZONTA is focused on providing needed funds for counseling of women and girls who are victims of abuse. They are also very supportive of women’s health as they had in the early stages funded bills for mammograms but have since thought it best to allow the Cancer Society of the Virgin Islands to lead in that regards.
ZONTA Club of Tortola is a member of ZONTA International and was chartered in October 2011.
The goal of the Club is to provide service and advocacy to improve the lives of women in the Territory through its projects and to contribute to world-wide ZONTA International service projects.
ZONTA International is a global organisation of executives and professionals working together to advance the status of women worldwide through service and advocacy. In 2014 ZONTA International celebrated its 95th anniversary.
7 Responses to “ZONTA targets men in fight against violence on Women & Girls”
Stop being so cold heart people it's only 13/2nd month of the year...it's like you all walk with your nasty attitudes from 2014. Some people will never change.
Anyway keep on tying..don't mind the noise it's just distraction