Walk for White Ribbon Day

The march is a joint initiative of Forbes Domestic Violence Committee, Forbes High School and Forbes Youth Advisory Committee and will be held on Tuesday, November 25.

The march coincides with national White Ribbon Day, which aims to eliminate violence against women.

Forbes Domestic Violence Committee invites all community members, businesses, services and schools to show their support for eliminating violence against women by participating in the march.

Binaal Billa’s project coordinator and Domestic Violence Committee member, Michelle Kable said they also encourage businesses to show their support by displaying a white ribbon in their window on the day.

Lachlan Local Area Commander, Superintendent Chris Taylor will be this year’s guest speaker at the event.

“The police will all be marching and Supt. Chris Taylor is happy to be our guest speaker – he is very supportive of our work,” Mrs Kable said.

Forbes High School will again have a significant involvement in the day and Red Bend Catholic College students and older students of the primary schools are also invited to take part.

“Principal of Forbes High School, Charles Dwyer, is a White Ribbon ambassador and is very supportive of all the work we do, which is great,” Mrs Kable said.

Mrs Kable said it is important that the whole community gets behind White Ribbon Day.

“Domestic violence is a community problem, so it needs to be a whole community approach to tackle violence in the community,” she said.

Mrs Kable said family violence and abuse is a serious and deeply entrenched problem in Forbes.

“It has significant impacts on the lives of men, women and children – the whole of our community,” she said.

“It knows no boundaries of gender, socio-economic status, age, ability, sexual preference, culture, race or religion.”

Domestic violence can occur in many different ways – violence between partners, boyfriends and girlfriends (also known as intimate partner violence or IPV); violence between other family members (siblings, parents, children, aunts, uncles and grandparents); most elder abuse, child abuse and sexual abuse, are all different forms of family violence.

“Thankfully, reducing family violence against women and children has been on the agenda of Forbes Domestic Violence Committee members, and the Forbes community is very committed to tackling the problem by standing up and speaking out against violence,” Mrs Kable said.

Mrs Kable said anyone interested in joining the Domestic Violence Committee is more than welcome, as it is open to the community.