The One Voice project of NCJWC Toronto has brought together women of diverse faiths to deal with the issue of domestic violence. Eva Karpati explains.
Recognizing that this is a problem across all faiths, the women determined that the community leaders were ill-equipped to handle the complexities of domestic violence. In May 2024, the participants of One Voice created a guide for faith leaders: “Faith Leaders on the Front Line: Responding to Domestic Violence in our Communities“. This guide was mailed to over 400 faith leaders across the Greater Toronto Area. The PDF is available here on the website. It was designed to be a tool to help with awareness and enable dialogue within faith communities and potentially save lives. It was received with great appreciation.
The next step was to bring together faith leaders to learn from each other. On February 1st, 2026, during World Interfaith Harmony Week, we hosted an in-person workshop with four faith leaders. The panelists Rav Sean Gorman, Pastor Judith James, Imam Abd Alfatah Twakkal, and leader Sunder Singh all spoke passionately about their work in addressing domestic violence and what still needs to be done in their respective communities and collectively. The dialogue that ensued was astounding. The attendees were faith leaders, lawyers, social workers, survivors, civic leaders, police officers, and spouses. Every one came engaged, ready to take action.
Through this dialogue, a few issues became very clear, such as the need for women to be able to transition out of shelters and into affordable housing, the importance of better workforce training and stronger financial networking, the ability to report to faith leaders and the police, the ongoing need for training for faith leaders, and the noticeable lack of men engaged in this issue. There is still much work to be done yet.
Find out more about this project at https://ncjwctoronto.org/our-projects/one-voice-multifaith-women-working-to-end-violence-against-women/
