Jenan Taylor
4 March 2025
Melbourne Anglicans will learn about the diocese’s gender-based violence work in culturally and linguistically diverse communities in the lead up to this International Women’s Day.
The Preventing Violence Against Women in Multicultural and Faith-Based Communities forum will feature learnings from the Safe and Thriving CALD Anglican project, research from Deakin University, and observations from a panel of multicultural clergy.
Panellist the Reverend Xiaoxi Lou said the forum would help increase awareness about violence in communities, which often does get seen, but often went unacknowledged.
She hoped it would assure people caught in violent situations that the Church supported them, while simultaneously making others aware they too could act to counter family violence.
“Different cultures will often deal with violence differently, and being a voice to acknowledge that God and the Anglican church do not see violence as ok within the family, can help bring light and truth to these situations,” Ms Lou said.
Read more: ‘Churches are uniquely positioned to prevent, respond and heal’
The Reverend Prashant Bhonsle said he was participating because he was concerned about the world being divided by gender lines, globalisation, and patriarchy especially.
He believed the focus on growing churches tended not to give long term consideration to how congregations would evolve without integrating gender justice and challenging the patriarchal structures of society.
“We would not really be able to have a holistic, ecumenical and justice-oriented approach in our congregations without that long term thinking,” Mr Bhonsle said.
“We need to have gender justice as a core concern running across all our themes and programs of our congregational life right from the beginning.
“Interpreting the Scriptures with an inclusive dimension is very important for any priest to foster an inclusive understanding.”
He said this was important to empower women as well as people with different gender orientations in congregations.
“Unless we affirm that we all created in the image of God, we will be unable to sail forward,” Mr Bhonsle said.
Read more: Churches can protect against harm, national gender violence conference told
He said he hoped forum attendees would gain a good understanding of the challenges some congregations faced while trying to address such a sensitive issue as gender-based violence.
CALD PVAW project officer Sarah Aruliah said the four-year old initiative had given the diocese a better understanding about the CALD space.
She said there were many unique layers that needed to be covered in working with faith, multiple cultures and prevention work, and there were plenty of insights to be shared.
Ms Aruliah said the diocese was leading the way in intersecting those areas and working with different cultures, but it was still learning, and building support networks with other faith-based and secular anti-violence organisations.
She said the forum was open to everyone, and would be especially useful for people from culturally diverse communities and clergy.
It will be held at St Philip’s Collingwood this Friday 7 March from 10:00am to 12 noon.
For more details and to register, see here.
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