Daily Herald Contributor
On Purple Thursday, Prince Albert and area Royal Purple members will take part in a national event to create awareness on brain injury arising from intimate partner violence.
To assist the victims, local Royal Purple members have prepared care bags for distribution at various shelters and support organizations in the area.
“The care bags are filled with personal items, shampoo, toothpaste, tooth brushes, journals, littles socks and mitts for children,” says Elaine Perkins, secretary for the Prince Albert Branch. “All items are needed when a person flees the safety of their home with little more than the clothes on their back.”
Purple Thursday falls on the third week of October, which this year is Oct. 17. In the days leading up, Royal Purple members will be collection donations for the care bags. Residents can drop off donations at the two Shopper’s Drug Mart locations in Prince Albert, or by calling Perkins at 306-961-7144.
Perkins said it’s important for women fleeing intimate partner violence to know they have help.
“We want them to know there are people who care when they reach out to the shelters as a haven,” she said. “I know the shelter in Prince Albert, we are communicating with them, they have up to 18 people coming into their place a month. We take 60 bags to the women shelter in PA each year.”
In the first year about 1,000 care bags were distributed across Canada, but this year more will be distributed because of the increase in the number of those that speak out and seek help.
Canadian Royal Purple BrainLove committee chair Sandi Lougheed said a woman or girl is killed violently every two-and-a-half days in Canada, usually by a male partner or family member. Each night, she said, more than 6,000 women and children feel gender-based violence in shelters.
“These statistics represent real women and children from our communities,” Lougheed said. “We know that one in three women in Canada experience intimate partner violence and, of those, up to eighty percent suffer additional brain injuries as a result.”
This year, almost 4,000 care bags will be delivered to Canadian shelters and a national symposium will be held in Edmonton. The Brain Care Centre in Edmonton is the co-sponsor of this event with the theme: Stop the Violence, Support the Survivor – What’s New and What’s Next.”
The national cause of the Canadian Royal Purple is brain injury awareness and prevention. The aim of Purple Thursday is to draw national attention to the magnitude and impact of intimate partner violence and subsequent brain injuries
“The only way to stop violence is to increase the awareness which Purple Thursday does do. Every business has a sign in it saying we are supporting Purple Thursday. We’ve got schools, every student is wearing something purple on purple thursday. we’ve got national booster contest where the kids address brain injuries. so the awareness is increasing,” Lougheed said.
“We hope the awareness leads to communities becoming involved in the programming required to bring an end to intimate partner violence and, in the meantime, support the survivors as they face their new future. We need to change the statistics.”
