2007 Awareness campaign...

“Sexual Abuse Kills Childhoods” – The Marie-Vincent Foundation launches its 11th Awareness Campaign

Montreal, April 26, 2007 – The Marie-Vincent Foundation’s Chairman of the Board, Mr. Jean Saint-Onge, today initiated launch of the Foundation’s 11th Awareness Campaign. Under the theme “Sexual Abuse Kills Childhoods”, the campaign will be seen throughout Québec. It aims to increase public awareness of the devastating effects of maltreatment on the lives of children under 12.

“Achievement of the campaign is made possible through the combined efforts of numerous resources and financial supports. The cooperation of the Québec Government, the Ville-Marie borough of Montreal, and the generosity of campaign creators and the media have allowed the Foundation to produce a public interest message toward preventing the sexual abuse of child victims,” Mr. Saint-Onge said.

For the third year the Québec Government is closely associated with the Foundation’s awareness campaign, which stands directly in line with governmental political commitments for equality between men and women. “We are pleased to grant $40,000 to this awareness campaign on sexual abuse,” said Mr. Tony Tomassi, Lafontaine Member of Parliament and parliamentary assistant to the Prime Minister, on behalf of Ms. Christine St-Pierre, Québec Minister of Culture, Communications and Women’s Affairs. “This partnership with the Marie-Vincent Foundation reflects the importance we give to the mobilization of everyone’s efforts toward countering sexual abuse, the majority of whose victims are women and children.”

The 2007 campaign will be carried out in a variety of forms: TV and radio announcements, publicity in daily and weekly papers, displays in the metro and bus stops and main public areas in downtown Montreal and in cooperation with numerous public and parapublic organizations throughout Québec.

“Awareness campaigns usually use shock images to communicate their message. For our creative team, it was necessary to move people and increase their awareness, but without upsetting them with an unbearable message. So we attempted to illustrate in few words the worst possible violence imaginable,” said Ms. Brigitte Mittelhammer, chief executive of the TAM-TAM\TBWA publicity agency, source of all the Foundation’s awareness campaigns since 1997.

Additionally, to properly set off launch of the Foundation’s annual fundraising campaign, whose goal is to collect the amount of 1.2 million dollars, Ms. Nathalie Simard, president of Nathalie La Fondation, presented to Mr. Saint-Onge and campaign co-president Ms. Nathalie Le Prohon a donation of $160,000 for development of the Centre d’expertise en agression sexuelle Marie- Vincent, the only organization in the francophone world to offer specialized and integrated services to young sexual abuse victims and their families.

“Assistance for child sexual abuse victims is Nathalie La Fondation’s chief preoccupation. We have decided to support the Centre due to its leading specialized services, to give back to children the perspective of an adult life uncompromised by the maltreatment they have suffered in their youth,“ stated Ms. Simard.

Since 1975, the Marie-Vincent Foundation’s mission has been to prevent maltreatment of children under 12. It also assists sexual abuse victims and their families by offering therapeutic services through the Centre d’expertise en agression sexuelle Marie-Vincent, in cooperation with the Marie- Vincent Interuniversity Chair on child sexual abuse.