The Manitoba government is providing $176,000 in new funding through the Family Violence Prevention Program to support women's resource centres in Winnipeg and Brandon. The announcement was made earlier this month by Sustainable Development Minister Rochelle Squires, who is also the minister responsible for the status of women.

Ang Braun, Executive Director of Genesis House in Winkler says, "it's super, I'm very happy for them. However, for those of us in the rural mostly it has no impact whatsoever. It does not impact our bottom line, and we do not have a women's resource centre in our area, the shelter sort of functions as that in our region."

She says they haven't received any increase in government grants for over 11 years, and with the cost of continually living on the rise, they're having a hard time keeping anything but their core programming running.

"At this point we've been cutting staff hours, cutting programs, just to try to keep the core program running, which is the 24-hour crisis line and the residential program."

One struggle they deal with is not being able to share clients stories due to safety and confidentiality. This means people who work at the shelter must be the face, voice, and advocates for the 1 in 4 women that experience domestic violence.

"The crazy thing is we haven't seen a change in those stats ever . . . Because we don't have a storefront, I'm starting to think that people don't know that our service is out there. The catch-22 of that is I've had to reduce our outreach to keep the core program running," Braun adds. "We would love to be more help, but if we're not going to be safe or effective with that person, then it doesn't make sense. If having them here would put them at higher risk, or put staff or other families at higher risk, that doesn't make sense, and that's sort of the balance that we're trying to keep all the time."

Braun says she has worked at the shelter long enough to see the impact their work has on the children of people who have resided at Genesis House. Witnessing the violence cycle broken is not only the most rewarding part of the job but also what keeps her and other staff members motivated to continue their work.

As well, Genesis House is exceptionally grateful for third-party fundraisers like the Roaring 20's night hosted by Red River College students in April. The Power of the Purse fundraiser also helped them fund a new intervention program that works with fathers called "Caring Dads."

"That is an intervention program that allows them to take responsibility for their actions, really understand what was not okay with their actions, and then make some real positive changes," she says.

Braun adds, they hope to start exploring more intervention programming but unfortunately do not have the funds to upkeep them at this time.