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Wingmen have WINGS covered

St. Albert's Jesse Lipscombe is just one of 30 successful and prominent men in the Edmonton area to be included as faces of the WINGMAN campaign.
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St. Albert actor and activist Jesse Lipscombe jumped to sign up for the Wingman for WINGS social media campaign running through September. ROB HISLOP PHOTOGRAPHY/Photo

Jesse Lipscombe’s charm and smiling face can win over anyone who watches him in a movie. Now, that star power is being used to keep the doors open for all men to talk about and help stop violence against women and children.

Look for that smile some time this month when Lipscombe makes the rounds on WINGS of Providence's social media channels as part of its new Be a Wingman campaign.

“It falls right in line with a lot of the work I like to do. I've done a good chunk of work with the WIN House, but not just that alone, the whole idea of taking whatever privileges we have, and using them to help support and uplift those that don't have them,” he began. “And, as it turns out, living in a patriarchal society, being a man alone definitely does lend some advantages, but with that, I think, comes real responsibilities.”

The campaign aims to bring forward 30 prominent men in the community who can use their statuses as influencers to inspire other men to do their part by recognizing the problem and talking about it with their peers.

“Who better to help prevent domestic violence than men?” Kathy Collins, WINGS’s executive director, said in a prepared statement. “Men’s voices need to be heard.”

It’s up to the community of men to truly get to the root of the issue of domestic violence.

The idea was generated during an a-ha moment for the organization’s resources and development manager Rhonda Janzen, who spent part of her pandemic year contemplating all of the wonderful supporters of WINGS, many of whom are men.

“We were thinking that we need to acknowledge these people, and I was saying, ‘We have so many amazing men who just are never highlighted or never talked about. They're like our wingmen.’ Yeah,” she enthused. “They’re wingmen for WINGS. I got super excited about it.”

The campaign kicked off on Sept. 1 with Percy Wiredu, owner of El Beso YEG, offering this note: “We need to build a healthy and safe society for all women to be able to lead and thrive in!"

Janzen said the campaign is not meant to be incredibly serious, “but it is about a serious topic” that is not meant to demonize men, but rather be as inclusive and supportive as possible.

In its press release, WINGS offered stats supplied by the Edmonton Police Service that indicated they responded to more than 7,800 domestic violence calls between Jan. 1 and Nov. 2, 2020. That figure represented a 16-per-cent increase from the same period the previous year. In domestic violence cases, assaults causing bodily harm or assaults with a weapon were up by 32 per cent from 2019 to 2020. 

“We want other people to feel like they can be a part of it. We want men to feel … included in the conversation. We want them to be our wingmen, too.”

Lipscombe is doing his part and he said it doesn’t have to be difficult. It all starts by listening to your male friends and hearing how they talk.

“That's the stuff that happens on a day-to-day basis, even just with the people you speak to and how they speak and the words they use when they're talking about those that identify as women and how they are treated differently, even when they're not in the room. Just with conversation, it starts to be eye-opening.”

The campaign continues until Sept. 30 through WINGS of Providence’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts.


Scott Hayes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

About the Author: Scott Hayes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Ecology and Environment Reporter at the Fitzhugh Newspaper since July 2022 under Local Journalism Initiative funding provided by News Media Canada.
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