Say NO to Domestic and Family Violence

Forming partnerships around issues that matter to the communities you serve is a proven way to increase membership and create lasting impact.

By PDG Dave Harmon. Rotary Club of Ballina-on-Richmond, NSW

Do you want to be part of a campaign that will create lasting impact in your town?

Do you want to form partnerships at a local, state and national level?

Do you want to transform your club, grow your membership by 165 per cent and be more relevant to the communities you serve?

Then this is for you!

What began as a local campaign to create awareness around Domestic and Family Violence in Ballina some six years ago, has grown into something so much bigger. The campaign has helped transform our club and it can help transform yours too.

Not unlike many Rotary clubs, back in 2019 we had an ageing membership of 33. But in just two years we grew to 76 members and today we have a membership of 88.

A large part of this growth can be attributed to our club increasing our public image, member and community engagement, attracting corporate members, and adapting to a cause that is valid, relevant and creating great impact.

It was the death of a young woman in Melbourne, Vic, in 2018 that moved me to act. My friend’s sister was fatally stabbed by her partner in front of her three young children and the house set on fire. This sparked me to ask, “What can I do as the incoming president of our Rotary club to make Ballina a safer place for women and children?”

PICTURED: Close to 1,000 community members joined PDG Dave Harmon at last year’s march against domestic violence. 

My wife Robyn and I spent months knocking on doors throughout the region to ask agencies with involvement in domestic and family violence – from law enforcement and health to education and advocacy – what Rotary could do. We then began our Impact and Action Plan.

Our first Say NO to Domestic and Family Violence community walk in 2019 was just the beginning. We had around 1,000 people walk with us on the day.

Robyn and I, along with our club’s Public Image Chair Jodie Shelley, began building and strengthening relationships with NSW Police, schools, local government, businesses and service providers to come together to build a whole of community approach to domestic and family violence.

PICTURED: PDG Dave Harmon (right), of the Rotary Club of Ballina-on-Richmond, NSW, with Inspector of Ballina Police Nigel Howard, fellow police officers and community members during last year’s say no to domestic and family violence march. 

Our strategy is to:

• Raise awareness of and educate our community about domestic and family violence
• Promote Love Bites – a respectful relationships education program – in schools
• Provide support for women and children escaping domestic and family violence
• Increase the rate of reporting domestic and family violence
• Our Rotary club places high priority on educating youth about respectful relationships, as research shows the best way to bring about long-term generational change in this area is to educate our youth.

An outcome from this commitment is the national partnership Rotary has with NAPCAN (National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect). The association’s Strategic Partnerships Manager Madelene McGrath says she “has never seen a movement so successful at grassroots level as this one”.

Rotary has the ability to bring together stakeholders like no one else. In line with our commitment to youth, the theme of this year’s partnership with NSW Police during the annual 16 Days of Activism campaign will be, ‘Young people – the innocent observer of domestic and family violence’.

As the campaign grew in Ballina, a local sports/bowling club asked if their staff could wear our Rotary branded Say NO to Domestic and Family Violence purple shirts over the 2022-23 Christmas and New Year period. The tragic domestic violence-related death of a Ballina woman in January 2023 motivated both our Rotary club and the Cherry St Sports Club to think about how we could do more and grow our campaign even further. From this, the ‘Purple Friday’ campaign was born.

Our club, along with Cherry Street Sports Club, asked Ballina businesses to join us in wearing our purple shirts every Friday. We had 80 businesses sign up within two weeks and we provided 1,000 shirts. We now have more than 100 businesses participating in ‘Purple Friday’, including doctors’ surgeries, high school and primary school staff, local council staff, retail, hospitality, trades and more.

Amid the visibility of our campaign, Richmond Police District Superintendent Scott Tanner says the number of people coming forward to report cases of domestic and family violence has increased. Last year, Ballina had a 47 per cent increase in victims who had reported domestic and family violence previously, re-report. This is an amazing outcome. It tells us that women are feeling believed, they’re feeling heard, they’re feeling validated, and they have the confidence to report.

Superintendent Tanner says Rotary has forced a change.

When I first joined the force, our community’s response to domestic and family violence was very poor. Now, thanks to Rotary, you can’t go down to Ballina on a Friday and not see a purple shirt.”

It was this whole of community approach and the model developed by the Rotary Club of Ballina-on-Richmond that encouraged Superintendent Tanner to invite me to Sydney for discussions with NSW Police on it partnering with Rotary clubs in NSW to work together on the Say NO to Domestic and Family Violence campaign. After an initial one-year agreement, we now have a three-year formal partnership with NSW Police.

There are now many examples of Rotary clubs throughout Zone 8 that have activated campaigns. In May, I had the pleasure of attending the Rotary Says NO to Domestic and Family Violence events in Mackay, Qld. With less than a year in planning, nine Rotary clubs combined with 12 high schools to partner with emergency services, police and more, to hold a public walk through the main streets of Mackay. They had more than 1,000 residents walk. The Queensland Premier attended, the local magistrate, the mayor and State Member of Parliament. This could be your Rotary club too.

PICTURED: The say no to domestic and family violence campaign has made its way to Cambodia, where respectful relationships are being taught in a local school.

Our Zone 8 endorsed campaign against domestic and family violence is now in 20 countries with more than 30,000 of our Rotary branded purple shirts out there across our communities.

Through this campaign you can greatly increase your club’s public image, adapt your club to connect with a relevant cause, expand your reach through new partnerships and create impact.

I encourage you to look at our newly updated Domestic and Family Violence Tool Kit, which provides the what, when, how and why of the campaign. In it, you can access an enormous amount of support materials to help you get started. All the hard work has been done for you.

To download the Domestic and Family Violence Tool Kit, visit rotaryclubofballinaonrichmond.org.au/rotary-zone-8