St Mary College and Toowoomba Grammar School students take on domestic violence challenge

Boys from St Mary’s Catholic College and Toowoomba Grammar School are coming together to stamp out the toxic culture that fuels domestic violence.

Year 11 and 12 boys from Toowoomba Grammar School and St Mary’s College have formed a new committee aimed at promoting healthy relationships among their peers and partners.

The committee is made up of six students from each school and will develop student-led programs to change how boys talk about and treat women.

The Mary’s-Grammar Domestic Violence Committee’s first project is a short video that exposed the monumental task ahead of them.

Filmed with the help of girls from St Ursula’s College and Fairholme College, the video outlines shocking domestic statistics and calls on boys to do better.

St Mary's College captain Ethan Payne and Toowoomba Grammar School year 12 student Steven Crocker stand with fellow senior students as the two schools form a student-led domestic violence committee and launch an educational video, Friday, October 18, 2024. Picture: Kevin Farmer

Year 12 Grammar boy and committee member Steven Crocker said messages about domestic violence and healthy relations were more powerful when they came from peers.

“If we can instil the correct mannerisms and correct language from a younger age in the boys, then it will help them instil it in the next generation,” he said.

“When the boys in the higher grades are not talking properly, it will flow onto the younger kids

“So far they have been really receptive.

“The all the toxic stuff you see in the news about private schools and social media, students are starting to realise it is time for a change.”

The statistics presented in the video are grim.

One woman dies at the hands of an intimate partner every nine days in Australia, while more than three million women, or 23 per cent of women, have experienced verbal abuse.

One in four women over the age of 15 have experienced domestic violence.

St Mary's College captain Ethan Payne (front) and Toowoomba Grammar School year 12 student Steven Crocker watch the video produced by a student-led domestic violence committee made of members of the two schools, Friday, October 18, 2024. Picture: Kevin Farmer

The boys are supported by their schools’ leadership teams and Toowoomba Together, a citywide partnership between police, health providers and support agencies that works to reduce the rate of domestic violence offending.

St Mary’s College captain Ethan Payne said domestic violence was widespread and affected everyone, either directly or indirectly.

“That was enough for me to put my hand up and say something needs to be done,” he said.

Steven was equally resolute,” he said.

“What really motivated me to do it is sort of the locker in chat and the negative stuff that comes out of all sorts of schools, private boy schools as well,” he said.

“We just want to make some sort of change, whether it affects hundreds of people or 10 people, because we need to start that chain reaction that is will flow down to the young boys

“The onus falls on us to take a stand.

“In the statistics we found, it is men that are doing these horrible things and we are trying to raise strong men with good character.”