To provide for the well-being of its members, the FESFO also organizes a number of activities in French on self-awareness, which help to create a safe environment at school and in the community. Workshops on subjects like self-affirmation or the need to talk to one another encourage an open and honest dialogue among students, and this leads to a healthy and positive community in the school.
The FESFO's statement of principle on violence against women cites the fact that young women face a variety of challenges. Without appropriate tools to overcome them, they can feel alone or inadequate.
This is the situation they may find themselves in, in dependent and unhealthy relationships that too often lead to violence. We have to work with them to create spaces where they can talk about choices, rights, decision-making and influences at this precise point in their lives. It is especially important that resources be offered to them in their language, in French, in our case.
The way they will succeed in having positive, healthy relationships, with everyone they meet, is if they are supported in making choices, informed about their rights and equipped with a network of friends who have a common vocabulary they can use to name, to try and to act.
While the federation's expertise lies in community and identity development for Franco-Ontarian youth, the FESFO sees a direct link between the well-being of girls, their relationships with their peers and their commitment and economic prosperity.
For 20 years, to support girls in their identity development and help them exercise leadership, the FESFO has offered awareness-raising workshops in French such as the one on self-affirmation, which was developed by and for Franco-Ontarian girls, and whose objective is to create a positive climate of trust that encourages discussions about the various things experienced by adolescents.
These workshops help participants to better determine and formulate their personal limits, by equipping them with various affirmation techniques, in addition to creating a network of young women who will be able to raise awareness among their friends and help to establish a helping culture. The workshops also validate the unique experiences of each participant, and provide them with resources for making concrete changes in their personal lives.
The workshops are led by facilitators from the network of facilitators who are experienced and sensitive to the issues involved in the status of women, including violence against women. These facilitators in fact provide accessible francophone models for the girls who take part in the workshops.
The girls who attend the self-affirmation workshops have quickly realized the need to work with boys to combat violence against women and ensure that there women have their fair place in society. To meet this need, the FESFO has developed workshops about the need to talk to one another, whose objective is to have students spend a day in a mixed group to discuss violence against women in their community and promote healthy, equal relationships between men and women.
The participants ultimately become part of the solution rather than part of the problem. They work together as a group to prepare a presentation for the other students in the school, to explain the challenge that violence in their environment presents and the possible solutions the group has identified over the course of the day. The workshop provides the boys and girls with an opportunity to discuss healthy relationships and meets the need to include boys in the discussion about girls exercising leadership.