​My walk against family violence

Ashleigh with Kathy Kaplan OAM, ​impact's Founder, at the walk

by Ashleigh Jakobovits, aged 11
 
Friday 24th of November was White Ribbon Day and the start of sixteen days of activism to end violence against women and children.
 
On this day I joined my mum and lots of other people to walk through the city to bring awareness to family violence.
 
We arrived in Federation Square and met with lots of other people from all over Melbourne. There were men and women, young and old with different cultures, all there to support those who suffer from domestic violence.
 
There were lots of speeches before the walk including:

• The Lord Mayor of Melbourne who gave a speech to show her support.
• There was a single mum with 4 children who shared her story about her experience of domestic violence
• Someone from Vic Health talked about how domestic violence can affect your health and wellbeing.

 
After the speeches they projected the names and ages of all the women and children who have died from domestic violence this year. I think nearly everyone watching was in tears from the thought of so many innocent people gone from domestic violence. There were children as young as 19 months old who had died. 72 women and 20 children died this year so far from domestic violence. It’s not something we should just ignore, it’s something we should be fighting against and helping those who have suffered.
 
After the video, we started our hour long walk to raise awareness to everyone about this horrible matter. It was raining heavily but we were all in good spirits. It was so wet that we could hear our shoes squelch every time we stepped. We made lots of friends along the way, by chanting or chatting.
 
There were lots of different organizations walking in the march.  I was walking with impact for women. My family and I have been supporting this charity since I was about three or four years old.  Every year we pack hampers for women and children who had left their homes because of domestic violence. We do it every Christmas and Mother’s Day. I have lots of fun wrapping gifts and packing bags upon bags of hampers for women and children.
 
This was my first ever march that I have been on and I really enjoyed it. I knew what I was doing was going to hopefully impact lots of lives and that made me feel good about myself. I definitely recommend that you all do something to help others in need. Just by doing something so small, can make a big difference to lots of people.