News on Lambeth Safer Streets

Lambeth Council’s Safer Communities Team hosted a successful conference event at Lambeth Town Hall to mark White Ribbon Day.

White Ribbon Day is a global event held every year in November to raise awareness and promote efforts to eradicate Violence Against Women and Girls. This years theme was #ChangeTheStory, with a focus on how we can work together to shift culture so that women can live lives free from violence.

Over 150 residents and practitioners from the local community joined to hear engaging contributions from a diverse range of speakers, artists and performers.

The event was opened by Leader of the Council Cllr Claire Holland and Cabinet member for Safer Communities, Cllr Dr Mahamed Hashi, introducing a packed agenda exploring ways that we can work together to ‘Change The Story’ – with a particular focus on the role of men and boys in promoting change.

Young people from Young Creators UK spoke about the development of Lambeth’s new ‘It’s Not That Deep’ anti-harassment campaign, including sharing an original song from the project.

We then heard from practitioners delivering programmes to support perpetrators of abuse to change their behaviour and support survivors to heal following abuse. A diverse range of local agencies were also able to promote their services via stalls at the event.

The afternoon was live illustrated and local artists who have collaborated with young people in Lambeth to develop thought-provoking content around VAWG were able to display their work.

To end the day, an interactive theatre performance from Black Men’s Consortium enabled audience members to intervene in depictions of violence against women and girls to ‘change the story’.

The event was a great success and we received positive feedback from attendees who shared that they enjoyed the engaging, empowering and creative approaches used throughout.