Islamic Family & Social Services Association (IFSSA)

Published purpose

This 36-month project will develop and test Islamic Family's GBV Learning Toolkit for Informal Community Care Providers. The project's goals are to address the lack of culturally grounded supports for Canadian Muslim Gender Based Violence survivors and their families in greater Edmonton area. Islamic Family & Social Services Association (IFSSA) will achieve this by conducting research with informal service providers, survivors, and at-risk populations; establishing and formalizing key partnerships; and testing and refining the toolkit with formal service providers. Learnings will be used to further refine the modules, and by the end of the project, the modules and guidebook will be shared among GBV service providers and within Canadian Muslim communities. This project will engage with faith leaders, formal and informal GBV service providers, and Muslim women with lived experiences, ensuring that key project activities are trauma-informed and survivor-led. The impact of the modules and guidebook will be assessed by a trauma-informed internal evaluator. By the end of the project, the organization will have developed a promising practise that engaged different members of the Muslim community to combat harmful gender norms and advance gender equality, and increased networks and collaboration to accelerate systemic change. A formalized curriculum will be developed to sustain the impact of the project training model and strengthen supports for Muslim GBV survivors. The supplemental funding will be used to expand the current project activities to make them more accessible to Muslim people seeking information about gender-based violence. Organization will focus on more illustrated video material over written material due to people’s varying abilities of English language.