By Alesha Capone
Point Cook’s Thelma Nascimento is helping to lead a campaign to raise awareness about family violence in culturally diverse communities.
Mrs Nascimento, a Brazilian-Australian, is one of 65 community leaders from across the state participating in Be Part of the Change.
For the campaign, AMES Australia has trained the community leaders to advocate for changes in their own communities, when it comes to family violence.
Mrs Nascimento said she graduated from an AMES Prevention of Violence Against Women course last year, which encouraged participants to launch their own projects on the issue.
Along with three men, she founded the Break Barriers initiative – which is separate to Be Part of the Change – to demonstrate how gender stereotypes can lead to violence.
Mrs Nascimento said after she penned a poem about “the everyday sexisms girls go through”, she and the three men decided to make two videos – one in English and one in other languages – with women reading out the poem.
Mrs Nascimento said they were also planning to make a video with men talking about how gender stereotypes hurt them, and a third one with both men and women talking about the consequences of violence.
Ms Nascimento said she believed educating the community about gender equality was important for future generations.
“I think it is important to show the world is so big and it’s important to show you can be who you want and do what you want,” she said.
For more information visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Emd-j5Spaw or www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SGSVG8cHNw
