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There are some conversations society only seems willing to have after the damage is done.
When violence against women and girls enters the national spotlight, it is usually in the aftermath - after the headline, after the outrage, after another round of public hand-wringing about misogyny, safety and the failure to protect women and girls before harm takes place. What gets less attention is the quieter, more difficult work of prevention: the work that begins earlier, in classrooms, in youth spaces, in the everyday attitudes young people absorb long before adulthood.
That is exactly where Rochdale-based Breaking Barriers have chosen to place their energy. And two years on from MagNorth’s original visit to this inspirational creative organisation, it is becoming increasingly clear that their project Blind Side was never simply a one-off arts intervention. It was the beginning of something much bigger.
Back in 2024, when we first spoke to the company about their work tackling violence against women and girls, what stood out was not just the urgency of the subject matter, but the clarity of their thinking. Breaking Barriers were not interested in empty messaging or box-ticking awareness work. They were asking a more challenging question: what would it look like to speak to young people about misogyny, respect, consent and harmful behaviour before those ideas calcify into something darker? That original article, “Breaking Barriers: Blowing The Whistle On VAWG”, captured a project at the point of lift-off. You can read it HERE.
Now, Blind Side is entering another phase of growth - and with it comes the kind of progress that suggests this work is not only necessary, but effective.
From 20 April, the programme will tour primary schools across Tameside, reaching more than 1,150 young people through a mix of live theatre, workshop discussion, film content and classroom resources. Delivered free to schools through funding from Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council, the programme is designed for Year 5 to 8 pupils and focuses on helping young people understand healthy relationships at an early stage.
That age group is important. One of the failures in how we talk about violence against women and girls is the assumption that these are issues to be addressed later, once attitudes have already taken shape. But misogyny does not suddenly appear in adulthood fully formed. It grows through small permissions, repeated messages, peer behaviour, silence, dismissal and the normalisation of things that should never become normal. By the time those attitudes become visible, they are often already embedded. So there is something both practical and quietly radical in choosing to begin here, with younger pupils, and in refusing the idea that they are too young to talk seriously about respect and harm.
At the heart of Blind Side is a 20-minute monologue following a girl who is the only female player on her school football team. It is a sharp premise because it speaks to a familiar reality: the girl navigating a space that welcomes her only conditionally, until the undercurrent of exclusion, judgement or hostility reveals itself. Through her story, pupils are encouraged to think about peer behaviour, negative messages and what happens when harmful attitudes go unchecked. The performance is supported by guided discussion, a pre-session film and follow-up resources for teachers, allowing the work to continue beyond a single visit.
And this is where Breaking Barriers seem to understand something that many institutions still do not: culture is vital. Stories matter. Young people do not learn solely through instruction; they learn through identification, emotion and recognition. A performance can reach somewhere a policy document cannot. Theatre can create a pause, a shift in perspective, a moment in which a child sees a behaviour differently or finds language for something they have felt but not yet named. That does not mean art alone can solve structural violence. It cannot. But it can intervene powerfully in the formation of attitudes - and that is no small thing.
What makes the latest stage of the project especially compelling is that its impact is no longer just theoretical. Evaluation data shows that after taking part, 90 per cent of pupils were able to identify what makes a healthy relationship, while 87 per cent understood what consent is and how to ask for and give it. Those are not abstract outcomes. They are meaningful indicators that the work is landing where it needs to land: in understanding, in confidence, in the beginnings of vocabulary and awareness.
The scale tells its own story too. This Spring’s tour will deliver 25 sessions across 15 schools in Tameside. Since 2024, Blind Side has reached more than 3,500 pupils across Greater Manchester, with a further 1,150 expected through this next round of delivery. In total, the programme has now worked with more than 60 schools. That matters because it shows demand, but also because it points to something more uncomfortable: schools are actively seeking out this kind of intervention because they know the problem is already in the room.
The wider context only sharpens that point. In Tameside, 96 per cent of domestic abuse victims are women, according to the figures referenced in the press material. That statistic sits heavily behind the project, not because Blind Side is trying to frighten children with the scale of adult violence, but because it makes clear what is at stake when harmful attitudes are left unchallenged. Prevention is not the softer option. It is the serious option.
What is most encouraging here is that Breaking Barriers have stayed committed to depth. Their wider body of work has long focused on difficult social realities affecting young people - child criminal exploitation, domestic abuse, hate crime, youth violence - but Blind Side feels particularly urgent because it is dealing with one of the most entrenched and evasive problems in public life. Violence against women and girls is discussed constantly, yet often in ways that allow everyone to condemn the worst outcomes without examining the attitudes, behaviours and cultures that enable them. Breaking Barriers are pushing in the opposite direction. They are choosing to work upstream.
That makes this project more than a success story for one arts organisation. It feels like a challenge to the rest of the cultural and education sectors. If a Rochdale-based company can build a touring programme that is creative, age-appropriate, evidence-led and increasingly far-reaching, then the question is not whether this kind of work can be done. It is why it is not happening everywhere.
When MagNorth first covered Blind Side, it felt like a bold and timely intervention. Now it looks more like a model - one that has grown steadily, responded to a real need and refused to dilute its purpose. In a climate where the conversation around violence against women and girls is too often reactive, Breaking Barriers are doing something more useful: they are getting there earlier.
And that may be where the real change begins.
Header Image: Rochdale's Breaking Barriers Mia Gibson, 2025 Tour. (Credit - Ella Marshall)
