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Partnerships for GBV Innovation & Change

January 2023 - March 2024

Funding from Gender Equality Fund, Rural Communities Foundation of NS

The Project Idea

The project will explore the feasibility of establishing a Gender-based Violence (GBV) Innovation Lab in Nova Scotia with multi-sector partners across traditional silos, to:

  • serve as an infrastructure to mobilize emergent research and lived expertise of diverse populations

  • compel collaborative learning and collective evidence-based advocacy and impact

  • activate innovative solutions aimed at the root causes of GBV for systems level change in institutional structures, culture and social narrative

Project Summary

The ecosystem Innovation lab is predicated on sustained partnerships among diverse change leaders in community, government, academia, funders/investors and diverse people with lived expertise for long-term solutions to shift the trajectory of GBV and reduce persistent rates of GBV. This requires a gender and social justice foundation, sustained partnerships beyond silos and a systems approach to collective learning and collaborative strategic action. Evolving knowledge of the complexities of GBV, its roots in embedded patriarchal and oppressive structures, frustration with competitive, short term project-based funding and recent government Inquiries present an opportunity to shift our fundamental approach and collective impact in the GBV field.

The Need: Why this? Why now?

The GBV Learning Lab we conducted in 2021-2022 with participants in community, government and academia unearthed 5 primary patterns in the GBV eco-system that arose repeatedly and are common pain points in the field:

  • Funding models and dynamics where programs and people need to fit into short term, competitive funding boxes in order to be served, and the need to constantly write proposals to piece together small pots of funding. This has significant impact on those working in the sector, and also on clients when initiatives are neither sustainable nor scalable. This contributes to…

  • Deep exhaustion people feel working in this sector, born of grappling with the long standing challenging patterns and barriers, (as above), the dire and complex needs of people grappling with GBV, but also the constant bumping up against rigid and oppressive system constraints.

  • Lack of diversity, inclusion and decolonizing models in the field that deprive BIPOC people and (other vulnerabilized) communities of culturally responsive and accessible supports and services.

  • Professionalization of the field that is evolving to prioritize credentialed therapeutic expertise and services over lived experience and grass roots support and social action advocacy

  • Health of the eco-system is not robust in terms of staying connected, softening silos, fostering eager collaboration, collective reflection and mobilizing shared learnings to influence practice, policy, legislation and narratives.

Some questions emerging from this experience are: How can we make strides in addressing and altering these patterns in some new and innovative ways? What might be a simple, elegant, supportive infrastructure for enhancing the health and well-being of the whole GBV sector eco-system here in Nova Scotia for greater strength, sustainability, growth, influence and impact?

Project Goals

When women’s advocate organizations shouldering the burden of gender equality efforts are disconnected and focused on their own survival in a competitive environment, it squanders our collective capacity to make headway on the structural and systemic root causes of GBV. While ongoing focus on expanded services and supports for survivors has been critical, it has proven insufficient for upstream system-level change, and reduction in GBV rates and risks, especially for communities that are rural or vulnerabilized by racism, colonialism, heteronormativity and institutional bias.

The project aims to shift focus from organizational survival and short-term projects to imagining how to scale-up innovative action on prevention, early intervention, and changing the social/cultural/systemic constructs that sustain gender-intersectional inequality and violence. It would necessarily be multidimensional, intersectional and grounded in equity, inclusion and social justice. Perspectives of Black, Indigenous, newcomer and gender diverse people will be integral to designing anti-oppressive partnerships and structures in which all can feel a sense of belonging and benefit. An innovation lab would engage everyone with a stake in ending GBV to collaborate in generating a coordinated, coherent, synergistic, proactive approach; shift focus and seek sustained resourcing to support violence prevention; and test evidence-driven ideas and amplify collective impact in gender equality efforts for all Nova Scotian communities.

Questions to Address

  • What would be a suitable structure for an innovation lab for the complex context we are in?

    • Legal, governance, principles, communication, decision-making, partnership agreements

  • Is this a shared need and is there readiness among key informants and potential core partners in the different locations?

    • Delineate the benefits and potential return on investment

    • Are there agreements in principle and capacity to participate?

  • How to gather key stakeholders in strategizing and incubating steps to implementation of a model?

  • How to grapple with philosophical differences in the field about choice, trans-inclusion, role of men and boys, etc.

  • How to align with identified needs, strategic opportunities and policy/legislative agendas

  • Can it source investment to become a sectoral hub for long term, generative and solution-focused engagement and impact.

    • Can social enterprise play a role?

  • Many others yet to be asked!