This year’s Walk a Mile in Her Shoes took place in Nipawin, which demonstrates something important – it doesn’t have to be in Melfort each and every year.
That means that it’s possible for Tisdale to host the event next year.
When I was chatting to Louise Schweitzer, the executive director of the North East Outreach and Support Services during the event, she told me her organization has not decided where it would be next year. She told me it could be Nipawin again, or Melfort, or even Tisdale.
The impression I got is that it would be based on local support. Nipawin had the town, KidsFirst and Cumberland College working together to make the event there possible.
Domestic violence is an issue in Saskatchewan, with the province seeing one of the highest rates of the crime in the country. It’s important to hold events like this as it shows women in that situation that what they are experiencing is not normal and that there are men out there that won’t stand for that sort of behaviour, that there are men out there that will walk in painful high heels to make a statement against it.
I believe there are groups in Tisdale that would be able to make a Walk A Mile event possible next year. And let’s face it, do we want to be the only Big Three community that hasn’t held the event? Do we really want to just allow Melfort to go ahead and hold it by default?
I don’t think so.
