Voice Against Violence

“Why Create A Drama” consists of two plays called “Gold Stars And Dragon Marks” and “Crush”. While both plays are based around domestic abuse, “Gold Stars And Dragon Marks” is about growing up with domestic abuse at home, trying to hide the secret at school to avoid being bullied because of it,  and keeping the bullying a secret as well. “Crush”, on the other hand, is about being a teenager and being in a relationship of domestic abuse. The play begins with a girl having a crush on her friend’s brother, and then progresses to them dating and him controlling her. Both plays are gripping and touch the viewer, as it shows exactly what happens in the real world.

In August we met with the professionals who produced Why Create a Drama: Alison and Callum from the Baldy Bane theatre company and Shona from Reduce Abuse in West Dunbartonshire.

They showed us the screenplays for the two performances which are basically film versions of the play. The idea is that schools do not need to pay for the live performance but teachers can download it for free from GLOW.

We need to get this project out to a lot more schools. It is fresh and it is real and it makes people listen!

The White Ribbon Campaign is for men and boys in Scotland who want to end violence against women.

Morphman is hugely passionate about it and has been following the organisation for a long time. Through his research on the campaign, he found out that they are doing an amazing job of promoting equality in every aspect of life, so we at VAV decided to make contact with a member of White Ribbon Scotland. Since then, we’ve been keeping up to date with each other, and Morphman even gave a talk about White Ribbon to senior civil servants, as well as several members of CoSLA and Ministers from the Scottish Parliament, emphasising their wonderful work. During the talk, Morphman gave a tour of the White Ribbon Scotland website, which details how you can make a pledge and what you can do to help the organisation achieve its targets; for example, some members distrubute white ribbon pins to males in their community, while those with a bit more time organise fund-raising events to help raise money and awareness of issues involving violence against women.

More recently, Morphman met up with a man named Callum who is the co-ordinator of White Ribbon Scotland where he was asked to organise an event in Glenrothes, Fife to help raise awareness of White Ribbon and issues of equality. Sadly, while the day went well and was very productive, many males didn’t turn up to the event. We are hoping that we can spread the word further and we dream of the day when equality reaches everyone.