In November 2009 CIET received a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for the CIHR Centre for Intercultural Research on Prevention of Gender Violence, located at the University of Ottawa Institute of Population Health. The Centre focuses on migrating minorities through a novel approach that links Aboriginal and immigrant groups in cities with their home communities.

  

The Centre will generate proposals for intervention research with partner communities of origin and with urban groups: the Nakota Sioux in Alexis and Edmonton; the Mohawk in Akwesasne and Ottawa /Toronto, Inuit living in Ottawa and in the north, and a subgroup of the Ottawa Latin American immigrant community. Each partner will name its own researcher to train and work with the Centre, increasing their research capacity and contributing to leadership of the Centre. 

 

Gender violence includes any type of sexual coercion, non-sexual physical violence and related forms of abuse based on gender in addition to the physical trauma caused by rape or child sexual abuse. Survivors of gender violence face significant risks, including HIV infections and other sexually transmitted diseases. Survivors may also take on high-risk behaviours, leading to their re-victimization.

 

In both communities of origin and urban counterparts, the Centre will also build skills to use the research products to improve programs and policies that affect the health of women, men, girls and boys. Although the four partners have quite different cultures, they will share a community of practice with policy-makers and other stakeholders, developing an enabling environment for future implementation of their own interventions.

 

The new Centre builds on CIET research and training in Canada and abroad. The team has trained Aboriginal health researchers in Canada for 15 years, recently through Anisnabe Kekendazone, a CIHR-funded Network for Aboriginal Health Research and the Inuit Institute for Research and Planning. In Latin America and Africa, CIET has trained indigenous and non-indigenous health researchers for 25 years. The Centre’s international dimension is prominent with CIET’s ongoing research on GBV in Mexico, Pakistan, Nigeria and Southern Africa.