IT’S White Ribbon Day today, but for the Tamworth High School students leading the charge to end domestic violence, it’s White Ribbon Day every day.
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For the past six years the school has run a year-long White Ribbon program, which teaches students to raise awareness of the issue throughout their community.
Teacher Kate McCrohon said she’s very proud of the students on the school’s White Ribbon Committee.
“These young men are the hope,” Ms McCrohon said.
“We’ve been running the White Ribbon program at this school longer than anyone else in Australia.
“Our goal is to ultimately spread to other schools and give them strategies to do the same.”
The program runs throughout the school and each year culminates in an educational camp and rugby league gala day.
Ms McCrohon said students on the school’s White Ribbon Committee learnt how to help people who came to them for help.
“These aren’t the young men that are out there being perpetrators of domestic violence, these are the young men that are out there helping others and supporting others,” she said.
One of the committee members was contacted by a girl he didn’t know for help, because she had a friend who was a victim of abuse and didn’t know what to do.
“People know that these boys are people they can turn to,” Ms McCrohon said.
While raising awareness of domestic violence is the school’s main aim, it has still found time to raise more than $10,000 this year for the cause.