ANROWS’s third Action Research Support workshop was held on 29-30 June 2017 in Alice Springs, with 44 participants representing 29 of the 40 Building Safe Communities for Women and their children (BSCW) projects attending. The two-day workshop provided opportunities for practitioners to share their project learnings, challenges and findings with a diverse range of projects from across Australia, and build their knowledge and understanding regarding promising practices and approaches to building safe communities for women and their children.

Workshop participants were offered an opportunity to participate in one of two activities to introduce Aboriginal cultures of Central Australia, hosted by Alice Springs based BSCW funded organisations, Tangentyere Council and Waltja Tjutangku Palyapayi Aboriginal Corporation. These activities included participating in cooking kangaroo tail and damper on the fire; an introduction to languages of the Central Australian region and learning some words and phrases in language; a demonstration and participation in a smoking ceremony; and an introduction to traditional story telling using sand.

The workshop included presentations and activities by ANROWS and BSCW projects based around key thematic areas including community engagement; approaches to primary prevention of violence against women; sharing action research findings; engaging men in the prevention of violence against women; and project sustainability.

Guest speakers included Monique Keel from Our Watch, who presented on good practice approach to prevention work and facilitated an activity regarding gender transformative practice, and Dylan McKinley from the NO MORE campaign, a Northern Territory based campaign which encourages men to be strong, and stand together and take action to improve family relationships and make families safe.

The BSCW Community of Practice participants also held their fourth meeting in Alice Springs. The group, which currently consists of 12 participants, met to discuss project challenges and updates as well as future plans for the Community of Practice for the remainder of 2017.

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