It has been nine years since Lynda Laushway retired, and since then, she has been following The Circle Education from the sidelines. For this interview, we first go back to 1992, when SWOVA was founded (before it split into IWAV and SWOVA in 1996) after a horrific incident in which a woman on Salt Spring was severely injured by an intruder in her home.

“I was, like many other islanders, shocked by this incident”, says Lynda, who moved from Newfoundland to Salt Spring Island in 1984. “A candlelight vigil was held in the park, and a lot of women showed up, deeply concerned about what had happened.”

After the vigil, a small group of women stayed connected. “We were wondering what services were available for women who were impacted by violence, and it turned out that there was nothing. No safe house or transition house, no crisis line, so we decided as a group to form a non-profit society focusing on helping women and children who are impacted by gender-based violence.”

Lynda has a bachelor’s degree in fine art, with a minor in sociology and psychology, and a master's degree in applied criminology. “But first of all, I was a feminist with a deep concern for social justice”, she continues. “Before I moved to Salt Spring, I worked in Ottawa for the Solicitor General of Canada and as an assistant editor for a monthly publication on criminal justice. I'd travelled all across Canada and seen every major prison. It was very depressing, and I decided that if I was ever going to work in this area again, it had to be in prevention. I wanted to try to stop all this horrendous damage to people.”

SWOVA was, almost from the start, part of a new, Canada-wide, crime prevention strategy pilot project. “One of the first things we did with this federal funding was to set up an assessment of Salt Spring Island. It turned out that the number of incidents of violence against women on Salt Spring was pretty much on par with the national statistics. We might have the illusion that nothing happens in this quiet little community, but that’s not true. A small island can be isolating; it is harder to get away or disappear as you would be able to do in a big city.”    

The organization grew fast in the first years. “An anonymous donor donated a house, we operated a crisis line, and we were trying to focus on prevention at the same time. After a few years, we realized that we were moving in too many directions. And that’s when we decided to split into two societies. IWAV became the service provider for abuse survivors, and SWOVA was primarily set up for research and the development of prevention programs.”

Lynda became the first executive director of SWOVA.  “We focused on education and advocacy, and that is where my passion lies,” Lynda continues. There were a lot of challenges in the beginning, she recalls. “We had to regroup, making connections with people who’d fit within our mandate and find funding. It turned out that it is easier to find funding for women who need immediate help than for the prevention side. But we were lucky to get support and funds early on from the BC Ministry of Women's Equality.”

In her years as executive director, Lynda developed a violence prevention program for men and women, the Respectful Relationships Program for students in grades 4 to 12, and started a youth facilitator team, all to help adults, adolescents, and children build healthy relationships. “Every once in a while, I run into a young person who was in our programs, telling me that the program had changed their life. Which is so great to hear.”

The ride was sometimes bumpy, she says, which happens when you start something new. “Change does not always happen smoothly.  You move forward, you move back, and move forward again. A lot of people said that our plans would fail, we were sometimes threatened, but we did it, and we even received national recognition. I am proud of that. It is pretty unique what we have here. You could probably count communities as big as ours in our country that have a dedicated agency focusing on preventing violence and building healthy relationships, on two hands.”

Lynda retired in 2016. “It was time for me to turn over the reins to someone younger, and it is absolutely wonderful that The Circle Education is still going strong,” she says. “We need these programs now more than ever. We live in unpredictable times, and some very powerful people have narrow-minded ideas. It feels like we are going back fifty years in time or even more, and that concerns me greatly. My hope for the future is that The Circle Education continues to grow and flourish, and to be supported in the community to offer these valuable programs.”

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Ask yourself this: Do you feel nervous if your phone is not in your hand or within sight? Do you find yourself wishing you were more creative or had more time in the day to spend on your passions or connecting with friends and family? Do you spend more time with your phone than any other person in your life? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then chances are you are addicted to your smartphone! And, three months ago, I would have answered yes to all those questions. My phone was an extension of my hand, a crutch that I had with me from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep, that I could use anytime I was anxious or bored with the world around me. My addiction started slowly. I began to input more parts of my life into my phone, increasing the time I spent on it. It became my camera, my calculator, my calendar. It was my budget book, my newspaper, my alarm clock. My entertainment, my bank, my weatherman. I started studying with my phone next to me, unknowingly taking a break every ten minutes to check my notifications, disrupting my concentration and recall of the information I was learning. I found myself opting to scroll through TikTok instead of a book before bed. Before I knew it, two hours would go by, pushing my bedtime later and later, affecting my sleep. And from my sleep-deprived, distracted state, at the end of the day, all I wanted to do was just curl up in bed and be on my phone, instead of spending time with friends or reaching out to family. The worst part was, even though I hated how much I depended on my phone, and I wished I could stop, I just couldn’t on my own. And it wasn’t my fault. Smartphones are specifically designed to addict us by releasing dopamine, a hormone that makes us feel good. It makes us feel so good that we engage in the dopamine-releasing activity more and more often until we are addicted. App developers know this and use algorithms to predict your phone patterns, choosing just the right moments to give you that dopamine hit, keeping you hooked to your screen. The Problem On average, we spend 4 hours on our phone each day. That is 28 hours a week, 112 hours a month, or 56 full days a year: the same time commitment as a part-time job. Our phones are usually the first thing we look at in the morning, the last thing we check before going to sleep, and everything else in between. They are an extension of ourselves. The average person checks their phone 47 times a day, which increases to a whopping 82 times a day for 18–24-year-olds. We are glued to our phones, tempted to use them anytime we have a break, such as playing games in a waiting room, returning texts while out with friends, or watching a video on the bus, ignoring the real world. The Solution Three months ago, I was at the point where I was threatening to get an old fashion flip phone to force myself to break my addiction. Recognizing that all I needed was to adopt some better phone hygiene, my mom gifted me a book that had changed her life and now it has also changed mine. It’s a pocket-size paperback called, “How to Break Up with Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life,” by Catherine Price. And, before you ask, no it is not available as an e-book! In the book, Price discusses the ways in which smartphone use has affected the mental health, attention levels, and abilities of newer generations and offers a 30-day program to “Break-Up” with your phone and get your life back. The book is a quick read. But don’t worry, if you don’t feel like reading a whole book today, I will be that best friend that supports your break-up by summarizing the most important takeaways from the book and offering the best 7 tips that have helped me to have a healthier relationship with technology. Smartphone use has been scientifically proven to affect our brain in 3 key ways: our attention spans, memories, and sleep patterns. Attention Spans The ability to be distracted has an evolutionary purpose; those who were able to notice changes in their surroundings and react accordingly to threats had a higher chance of survival. However, distraction by our phones is a lot more disruptive to our lives in the present. Picture reading a book vs. reading a text on the internet. When you read a book, distractions only come from the outside world, maybe the light changes outside your window or someone shouts from another room. But when you a read a body of text online… Hold on. I just have to respond to a text. Ok, I am back. When you read a text online, there are ads, links, and flashing images that compete for your attention, draining your focus and causing you to be distracted more easily. See how easy that was? Memory Constant smartphone use also affects our long and short-term memories. Our short-term memory is our recent memory. It reminds us that we are looking for our wallet or that someone just rang the doorbell. When our phone dings while we are trying to complete a task, it interrupts our short-term memory from retaining the information in our present reality. And even more, short-term memory eventually becomes long-term memory. Constant phone use disrupts this transformation. Sleep Phone use can affect our sleep patterns in a variety of ways. Scrolling through social media before bed causes you to have lots of conflicting emotions. Posts or videos can make you feel happy, then sad, anxious then excited, disrupting your emotional state and feeling of calm, making it difficult to fall asleep. They also emit blue light, a frequency of light that tricks your brain into thinking that it is daytime, inhibiting melatonin production (the sleep hormone) and making it harder to fall asleep. When you are sleep-deprived, your attention span, motivation, and mental health can be further negatively affected. My Suggestions The book offers a 30-day program to “Break-Up” with your phone. I have combined the best strategies from the book with my own to offer some quick tips & tricks to regain your independence from your smartphone and improve your attention spans, memory, sleep pattern, and relationships with others.

1. Get an alarm clock. Now you won’t have an excuse to keep your phone by your bed. Keep it in the other room, even. I also try to turn it off 30 minutes before I go to sleep and wait 30 minutes in the morning before going on it, to protect my sleep.
2. Print out hard copies of text if you really want to absorb information. Avoid distraction from ads and links and pop-up notifications so you can concentrate.
3. Delete social media apps. Don’t worry. You can still access most social media apps on your computer. But this allows YOU to be in control. You can interact with social media when you choose to, not when a notification tells you to.
4. Practice non-social distancing. Heading out for a hike? Leave your phone in the car. Going to the grocery store, leave your phone at home. Heading to the bathroom? Leave your phone in the other room! Practice getting comfortable with creating physical distance between you and your phone, so you can think and just be on your own.
5. Deepen your relationships by cutting out the third wheel, your phone. When you are with others, keep your phone on airplane mode and out of sight. Tell your friends what you are doing and maybe they will also follow suit. This will allow for more intimate and uninterrupted conversations and connections with others.
6. Delete all non-essential apps. Let’s face it, the world we live in is set up with the assumption that you have a smartphone. Vaccine passports, navigation, the internet; they are all in your pocket. Your phone offers essential tools for you to move through the day smoothly. But all the rest of the applications are just a time suck, distracting you from the real world around you. Be brave and delete those apps that you usually reach for when you are bored, anxious, or lazy. You will be surprised with what other, more fulfilling activities take their place.
7. Remind yourself what you do for fun. What were you passionate about before you had a smartphone or what areas of your life do you wish you had more time to nurture? Cutting down your phone use will leave you with a lot more hours in the day to yourself. If you are not prepared with other self-care activities to take the place of those hours, you will be left feeling bored and will be compelled to go right back to your phone, with arms wide open.

Adopting these tips has changed my life. My screen time has drastically decreased. I have more time to nurture my creative passions and practice self-care without an app to scroll through. I am using my brain for critical thinking instead of reaching for google without a thought. And most importantly, I am having deeper connections with my friends and family, uninterrupted by dings and pings. Since have I broken the addiction, I no longer have a compulsive need to have my device glued to my hand. I am free. I have even gone a whole day without checking my phone, simply because I forgot to turn it on, and you can too! Ok, take a breath. I know that change can sound scary. The biggest thing that holds us back from making these changes is FOMO: the Fear of Missing Out. We do not want to miss out on updates on our friends’ lives, important notifications, or breaking news. However, think about the more important things we are missing out on in the real world by being glued to our phones. A missed connection at a bus stop while you were responding to a text, a baby bunny outside the window, as you play a game on your phone in a café, or the chance to observe a joyful reunification of friends at the ferry terminal while you scroll through Instagram. We are already missing out on so much. So the question is, what would you rather miss out on, an abstract network of likes and removed connections or real life and real relationships? Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash

Supporting Rural Youth at The Circle

Check out all of the programs The Circle has to offer. Our programs are built around the core principles of SEL to work towards safer communities.

• We offer the Empathy Project for Grade 3, 4, and 5 students to provide them with the building blocks of social–emotional learning.
• For Grades 6, 7, and 8, the Respect Project offers students the opportunity to get to know one another better and learn about the foundational role respect plays in their lives.
• The Pass It On program is an after-school, cross-peer group mentorship program with intermediate students (as buddies) and high school students (as mentors). Its goal is to foster capacity for healthy relationships and support life transitions.

Our programs have successfully offered students the wide range of benefits of a social–emotional education. After attending our programming, students have expressed a greater capacity to feel empathy for others, to resolve conflict, and to build equal and healthy relationships. Teachers observe students using their new skills in the classroom, and they request our programs year after year. Learn more about our programs or request more information about how you can bring our programs to your classroom or organization.

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. Adele Mark is a third-year undergraduate student studying Sociology and Global Development Studies at the University of Victoria. She was involved in the Pass It On program in high school at Gulf Islands Secondary School and was hired as Marketing and Communications Assistant, a temporary student position in early 2021, at The Circle. Adele has been involved with several projects that focus on youth education and female empowerment and looks forward to continuing this work with The Circle.

The post Why I broke Up with My Phone and How it Changed my Life for the Better appeared first on The Circle Education.

Each year SSI Foundation measures community needs to identify areas requiring attention. Read this year’s helpful and informative report here:

https://ssifoundation.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/SSIF-Vital-Signs-Report.pdf

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R+R Workshop

I’ve just recently completed 4 weeks of delivery of Respectful Relationships and Peace Kids programs at Salt Spring Island Middle School. This is my first time in my role as male facilitator in these programs working alongside Christina Antonick, an experienced facilitator.

Through the curriculum and asking questions we are facilitating conversations with kids to learn peace and respectful relationship skills:

• Doing a body and emotions scan;
• Becoming aware of emotions through looking on an emotions wheel and identifying what they are feeling;
• Growing critical thinking and emotional intelligence skills through paying attention to and questioning what is going on around them and learning to read emotions in other’s body language;
• Knowing what it is to listen to themselves and paying attention to others – body language, eyes, what is being said, and how it is being said;
• Reflective listening with others – full body listening – devices put aside, eye contact, closed mouth, body facing – being able to reflect back what is being said, and listening for the spoken and unspoken emotions;
• Where and when to ask for help;
• Paying attention to, and choices in, how they talk to themselves;
• Power of appreciation and gratitude of themselves and others;
• Their heart has intelligence;
• Learning what personal – space, touch and talk – boundaries are;
• How to communicate assertively;
• Empathy for others;
• Critical thinking about Competition and cooperation – how they can serve and not serve;
• What is Peace and Not Peace (Violence).

Powerful skills in a world that is still very much learning them as well.

David Norget, R+R and PeaceKids Facilitator

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Read Canadain Women’s Foundation Blog Post “Day 8: How SWOVA is Helping BC Teens Develop Respectful Relationship Skills“

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“Together we can face any challenges as deep as the ocean and as high as the sky.”
– Sonia Gandhi-

In early October, I was blessed to travel to Calgary for a national meeting of Canadian Women’s Foundation’s 17 Teen Healthy Relationships Grantees – of which our Respectful Relationships is one. CWF are working to stop violence, end poverty, and empower girls in every province and territory in Canada. For 15 years they have been investing in teen healthy relationship programs; the last five of which have been multi-year investments. These grants focus on school-based healthy relationship programs and were developed as a key strategy to prevent violence against women and girls.

During our two days together, I had the great pleasure of meeting over 30 educators, activists and community mobilizers from across the country. From my hometown province, Nova Scotia’s Leave Out ViolencE (LOVE) with programs in Indian Brook and Membertou First Nations, in Montreal, Building Healthy Relationships at Bureau de la Communauté Haïtienne de Montreal, TAG-V: Teens Against Gender Violence Abrigo Centre doing amazing work with youth in Toronto. Newcomer Youth & Healthy Relationships a co-ed, school-based healthy relationships program targeted to newcomer refugee youth (aged 12-17). These are only a few of the many national programs that are offering exceptional youth violence prevention programs and our 2 days together left me full of inspiration, hope and pride! I am also really grateful that SWOVA’s Respectful Relationship’s Program joins together with communities across Canada to create a network of national education models aimed at eliminating violence and fostering health, safety and well being for youth.

by Christina Antonick, R+R Facilitator

Photo: Megan Manning

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Before I began working with SWOVA I worked as a substitute EA in both the middle and high school, which gave me a unique opportunity to sit in on circles with SWOVA staff, faculty and students.  What I experienced was a radical movement of inclusion for everyone. In the mainstream we view violence prevention as a predominately female issue. The danger in this rhetoric is that is divides the problem into an “us vs them” model where blame lands on both sides.  In reality violence prevention is a human issue that needs both men and women to address if we are going to build a new paradigm. What I see during the SWOVA sessions now as a facilitator are young women and men having the hard conversations.  We have the hard conversations about bullying, homophobia, racism, gender identification, sexism and violence.

At times these conversations can be uncomfortable as we come face to face with our own biases, but I see the youth from all identities taking the plunge and diving in.  I see difficult questions being raised as we learn to listen to one another. Yes, we look at perpetrators of violence, the role the media plays, and how we contribute to continuing this imbalance but also what we can do to change it.  Part of this dialogue requires looking at the statistics around violence to gain a better understanding of what is going on in communities across this county, for with knowledge comes power. Boys and men face a great deal of pressure in this world that has far reaching impacts in their lives and the lives of everyone they choose to be in relationship with.  I see the young men stepping up and gathering a personal toolkit to help them navigate their way though. Emma Watson’s (of Harry Potter fame) recent speech to the UN summed it up best when she described the role she sees for men in violence prevention. “Men (should) take up this mantle so that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human too, reclaim those parts of themselves they abandoned, and in doing so, be a more true and complete version of themselves.” Sharyn Carroll, R+R Facilitator

Empowering Youth for a Better Tomorrow

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Lynda Laushway receiving a cheque from Island Savings

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  “We believe everything – from one’s perception of a problem to the solution – begins with a willingness to look within, tell the truth and commit to change.”

Last week I watched “ That Makes No Damn Sense” with my partner and we shared laughter as we watched the honesty, truth and wisdom in Ayize’s offerings about partnership, acceptance and true intimacy. These are the real parts of a relationship that are so very important for youth to learn about in preparation for intimate relationships. I love the Ma’at’s playfulness and authenticity. They remind me of the grounded quality that marriage and partnership can be. In the past few years, I have come to believe that all great social change is rooted in families in which there is a partnership that is based on truth, loyalty and commitment.

Recently, Jean Oelwang conducted a study of some of the greatest leaders on the planet today – Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter to name a few. She wanted to study and interview these giants (all of whom have incredible self- esteem) and discover what they all had in common. She could only find one common trait among them: A supportive, committed romantic relationship.

Bruce Muzik explains, “If our sense of self is sculpted by our interactions with others, then the one person who has the most influence over our sense of self over time is the person we spend the most time with. And that person is usually our romantic partner.”

I express gratitude to the Ma’at’s for their dedication to couple and community health and well being and how they support others to continue to grow, love and foster meaningful relationships. You can check out their website at: https://www.blackloveandmarriage.com/2013/09/the-unauthorized-maat-tell-all/

and

“It Makes No Damn Sense” at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iuGjMbUTF4&feature=share

The post Ayize and Aiyana Ma’at Demonstrate How Commitment in Relationships Can Change the World – By Christina Antonick R+R Facilitator appeared first on The Circle Education.

In this particular Grade 10 class, several young men had agreed to show up for our orientation meeting. One of the young men didn’t come and in our session with him the following day we asked where he had been. Several young men piped up, “Yesterday was the release of Grand Theft Auto 5!” The young man shared that in making the choice between R+R Youth Team and Grand Theft Auto- he had chosen the latter.

These are the moments that I enjoy in our circle. Entering into a deeper conversation about these young men’s choices and reflections on pop culture, video games, masculinity and self awareness are always a great opportunity for me as a facilitator to balance deep listening with respectfully encouraging critical thinking amongst my students. And of course, moving in these conversations from a place of believing that as an adult and a creative edge walker, I must moment to moment create questions that do not create further divide between us, but rather support learning on all fronts.

I had heard on CBC just before arriving to class that the makers of Grand Theft Auto had spent $125 million dollars on the creation of version five. One of my students offered that in the first day of release over $500,000 in sales were made. I asked youth to think about what demographic would be making the purchase on the first day of it’s release and we explored topics including internet addiction, sexualized violence against women, how we might enter into a conversation with the CEO of Grand Theft Auto about the profits, and how they might be distributed in support of peace and violence prevention work.

As always, the conversation was lively and provocative. Youth wanted us to hear that just because someone plays a violent video game that it does not mean they will then move out into the world and use violence against others. Kevin and I asked youth if they were willing to consider that while that may be a possibility, the media representation of violence against women creates a culture where people become desensitized to real life incidents of violence. We also explored technology’s impact on individual and family health and well-being.

I left the conversation feeling confident that some great questions has been posed and that we all got to practice reflective listening. By engaging in these conversations around respect, healthy masculinity and how individual actions effect the collective culture, we continue to foster peace in the making.

Christina Antonick, R+R Adult Facilitator 

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