Families dealing with abuse in London’s Muslim community will benefit from a new program announced last week at The University of Western Ontario by Attorney General Chris Bentley.
An $80,000 grant to the Muslim Family Resource Centre for Social Support and Integration, delivered through collaborative efforts with Western’s Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children (CREVAWC), provides crisis assistance and referrals to services for abused women in the city’s Muslim community.
The Muslim Family Resource Centre for Social Support and Integration builds on the work of the Muslim Family Safety Project, initiated by Mohammed Baobaid to reach out to abused women.
The main focus of the project was to establish a mutual understanding between “mainstream” service providers and the London Muslim community to address domestic violence in a culturally competent manner.
Barb McQuarrie, CREVAWC Community Director, will take a leadership role in assembling a research team to work with the Muslim Family Resource Centre and is also writing a manual for community mentors, who are being trained at the centre.
CREVAWC Academic Director Peter Jaffe, with appointments in the Faculty of Education and departments of psychology and psychiatry, has already been working with Dr. Baobaid and has been tagged as a research collaborator.