Hurricanes say violence is not their game

Hurricanes Julian Savea and Victor Vito are poster boys for a Wellington campaign against family violence.

The large billboard with the words “Violence is not our game” will go on show at the Wellington Railway Station from Tuesday, August 14. Other billboards and signs supporting the Te Rito Family Violence Network campaign will be displayed around the city for a month from Tuesday.

Others adding their support to the campaign include Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown, the Laughing Samoans and members of the Richter City Roller Derby Women as well as Faduma Moallin leader of the Somali community and John Aloro leader of the Sudanese community.

The campaign aims to raise awareness of family violence issues and agencies in Wellington where help is available.

Te Rito Wellington Family Violence Network is made up of representatives from government and non-government organisations who work in the area of family violence from its prevention to providing crisis support and family violence programmes for those affected by violence and those who need to change their behaviour. The agencies include Relationships Aotearoa, Parent Help, Women’s Refuge, Barnardos, Plunket, Age Concern, the New Zealand Police and Child Youth and Family.

“We want to send a strong message that family violence is not OK. Police statistics show that Police attended 87,786 family violence incidents in 2010/11 – that’s one every six minutes. Children are exposed to this in large numbers – they are present in around half of all family violence incidents attended by Police,” says a spokeswoman for the campaign, Andrea Seymour, Public Health Advisor, Healthy Communities, Regional Public Health.

“As a community we must all stand up and say we won’t tolerate family violence. It’s not OK to stand by and not take action – we all have a part to play in eliminating family violence and there is help available.”

For more details visit the Te Rito website (that goes live tomorrow), www.teritowellington.org.nz

ENDS

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