If you asked them just a few years ago, tossing flowers into the Fraser River to cap prevention of violence against women week would have been the last thing Nathan Maxwell or Alfy Aiello thought they would ever be doing.
But there they were on Saturday afternoon, among the handful of men joining in a group of more than 35 women and children who gathered at Paddlewheel Park to do that very thing and also be very upfront about their past transgressions.
"I had a bad anger problem and I just realized one day I need to change," Maxwell said as he held his toddler-age daughter following the ceremony.
"And this man right here has helped me do that," he continued, referring to Tom Wainwright, a family violence counsellor at the John Howard Society who is responsible for a program designed to put men on a better path.
"We learn about anger management, conflict resolution, personal responsibility, communication," said Aiello. "Just how get control of our feelings and understand how they work and peel our emotional onion and just all kinds of things society doesn't teach to a man."
See the full story in Tuesday's print and online editions.
