Why men need to organise to end male violence against women. Panel discussion + Q&A
Channel: Male Allies Challenging Sexism
Date: 2023-11-03

Engage Conference 2021 opening plenary / panel discussion.

This panel discussion covers why we organised the 2021 Engage Conference and why it is so important that men actively work and organise to end male violence against women. 

The panel discussion is chaired by Chris Green (Founder of White Ribbon UK and co-founder Male Allies Challenging Sexism) and features Derick Botsyoe (co-Founder Action for Equality Africa, formerly White Ribbon Ghana), Michael Conroy (founder of Men at Work), Mark Hegarty (Co-founder of What Can I Do?) and Vicky Robertson (Founder of Kaleidoscopic UK) and Björn (co-founder of Male Allies Challenging Sexism). 

The panel discussion is followed by a Q&A. 

Speaker information: 

Derick Botsyoe is the co-founder of Action for Equality Africa (formerly called White Ribbon Ghana). He works with men in Ghana to promote positive fatherhood, gender equality and end Sexual and gender-based violence in Ghana. 

Michael Conroy founded Men At Work in 2019 as a catalyst for enabling those working with boys and young men to facilitate constructive dialogues about ending violence, rejecting unsafe behaviours and delegitimising disrespectful cultural messages about the relative value of women and girls. 

Mark Hegarty is the co-founder of WCID (What Can I Do?), which was formed in the aftermath of the murder of Sarah Everard with fellow co-founder Gauri Taylor Nayar, who is a survivor and Methodist preacher. Mark felt compelled “to do something” as a “normal bloke” and as a father of an 18-year old daughter, but did not know what to do and started a journey of listening, understanding, learning and sharing. WCID is created to empower men to understand and show how they can help to make women feel safe as a positive step towards preventing violence against women. 

Vickie Robertson founded Kaleidoscopic UK in 2019 after being subjected to child and adulthood domestic abuse and violence for most of her life. After seeing first -hand the gaps and challenges that exist for survivors she wanted to create long-term support that is threshold free, trauma-informed and uniquely survivor-led…so that’s exactly what she did. In 2019 Vickie was the first to petition for mandatory domestic abuse training of all in the family court system and is now working hard to have Independent Domestic Violence Advisors as part of the process to advise judiciary. 

Björn is one of the co-founders of Male Allies Challenging Sexism. He was first introduced to feminism by his partner in 2009. In the past he has contributed to feminist conferences a member of the London Pro-Feminist Men’s Group and Anti-Porn Men Project.