The Province of Manitoba announced funding for programming offering support to victims of sexual violence, coinciding with the start of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
Justice Minister Cameron Friesen announced that the provincial government will be putting $6.4 million into 24 community-based agencies supporting victims of crime. That includes $850,000 for three organizations that support survivors of sexual violence.
The province says the funding will allow Ka Ni Kanichihk’s Heart Medicine Lodge to expand its support for Indigenous survivors of sexual assault and for the Survivor’s Hope Crisis Centre to expand its sexual assault programming into new areas of the province. It will also see the Western Manitoba Women’s Regional Resource Centre create a crisis-based sexual assault services in Brandon.
“Our government recognizes the need to provide victims of crime with enhanced supports and we know that agencies working on the front lines are in the best position to develop the programming needed,” the minister stated in a news release Thursday.
The funding is being provided to Indigenous-led agencies creating projects to support address violence against Indigenous women and girls and the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community.
It will also allow community-based organizations to develop projects in support of victims of crime or gender-based violence, or projects responding to calls for action from the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) Inquiry.