Photo: Facebook / Odyssey House

By Curtis Galbraith

Community

Take Back the Night march set for tonight in Grande Prairie

Nov 1, 2019 | 5:30 AM

The annual Take Back the Night march in downtown Grande Prairie tonight will mark the beginning of Family Violence Prevention Month.

Odyssey House Executive Director Ebony Rempel says organizers want to raise what she calls “consciousness” around different forms of partner violence, especially sexual violence, that is happening in this community.

“We know that we saw (a) 25 per cent increase in women and a 61 per cent increase in children contacting us for emergency shelter services. That’s compared to the last fiscal year.”

Rempel says the Prevention of Family Violence Network in Grande Prairie, an organization that includes Victim’s Services, the John Howard Society, the RCMP, and PACE have all seen what she terms significant rates of violence.

“Victim’s Services opened up over 1500 files related to domestic violence last year. The John Howard Society, which does a lot of the treatment programs for those that perpetrate violence, had 162 clients that were referred to that programming. RCMP, specifically to the Grande Prairie detachment, reported over 1700 calls for service related to intimate partner violence.”

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She adds PACE had 3000 participants in its sexual violence awareness programs.

The issue of domestic violence came up during the World Series after the assistant general manager of the Houston Astros was fired for hollering at some female reporters covering the Series about how he was glad his team had acquired pitcher Roberto Osuna.

Osuna was charged with assault after an incident involving the mother of his child while he was still with the Blue Jays in 2018. The charge was later dropped after he signed a peace bond.

Rempel says people often don’t know how to handle things that happen at home in the workplace.

“It doesn’t always feel like it transcends into the workplace, but it does. We see it in so many different ways in terms of stalking and workplace performance. Those that are victims of domestic violence were often seen (having) performance issues related to that.”

Rempel cites coming to work late as an example of those performance issues.

The march is set to start at 6:30 tonight at Revolution Place. It will go west on 99 Avenue, cross at 102 Street, then come east on 100 Avenue and make its way back to Revolution Place.

Anyone taking part has a chance to win tickets to tonight’s Storm game. Also at the game, someone from City Council, as well as from the County of Grande Prairie, will proclaim November Family Violence Prevention Month.