Morinville’s New Women’s Shelter

As we learned in our conversation with the St. Albert Community Village earlier this year, heart-breaking stories of domestic violence are constantly unfolding around us. Because of social taboos and stigmas that exist in our culture, survivors of abuse can often be hesitant to speak out about their experiences, and so domestic violence can be a difficult issue to solve. Last month, however, the Town of Morinville made some incredible progress on this front, by donating property to the Jessica Martell Memorial Foundation for the construction of a women’s shelter—the first of its kind in the county.

Jessica Martell was killed by her common-law husband back in 2009, an event that shook the community. In 2012, Jessica’s mother, Lynne Rosychuk, founded a support network in her daughter’s name for survivors of domestic violence. The Jessica Martell Memorial Foundation was started to provide resources to women at risk of abuse, and to attempt to reduce domestic violence in the region through awareness initiatives and community engagement.

At the present time, only 32 of Alberta’s 350 municipalities offer safe spaces for survivors of domestic abuse, and none of those existing spaces are in Sturgeon County. The Jessica Martell Memorial Foundation hopes that this women’s shelter will fill a void of safe spaces in the region, and the Town Council of Morinville is behind them all the way.

A shelter of this type has been a long-time coming. There are a number of women’s shelters in Edmonton, but research done by organizations like the Jessica Martell Memorial Foundation and St. Albert’s own Stop Abuse in Families (SAIF) organization indicates that women are unlikely to uproot their lives and travel to a new city in order to seek help, especially when there are children involved. Without nearby support centres, such as the one going up in Morinville, it is difficult for women to find ways to escape violence at home.