From SOUL BEAT AFRICA - where communication and media are central to AFRICA's social and economic development
In this issue of The Soul Beat:
* PROGRAMME PROGRAMME EXPERIENCES involving men and encouraging dialogue
* Lessons learned from EVALUATIONS of GBV campaigns
* Denouncing GENDER VIOLENCE IN THE MEDIA
* STRATEGIC THINKING around gender activism, adolescents, and women's rights
* MORE GENDER-RELATED INFORMATION on the Soul Beat Africa website
* MATERIALS to support communication and community involvement
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In anticipation of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence which begins next month (November 24 to December 10), this edition of The Soul Beat looks at the role of communication in programmes that deal with gender-based violence (GBV). The newsletter includes programme experiences, evaluations, strategic thinking documents, and materials related to increasing awareness, dialogue, and activism to prevent GBV in Africa.
If you would like your organisation's communication work or research and resource documents to be featured on the Soul Beat Africa website and in The Soul Beat newsletters, please contact soulbeat@comminit.com
To subscribe to The Soul Beat, click here or send an email to soulbeat@comminit.com with a subject of "subscribe".
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PROGRAMME EXPERIENCES
1. Men for Gender Equality Now (MEGEN) - Kenya
Initiated in 2001, Men for Gender Equality Now (MEGEN) Kenya is a network of men and women activists who engage in community education work, advocacy, and campaigning in order to put an end to gender-based violence (GBV) and challenge unequal gender power relations and harmful definitions of masculinity. Besides offering support services for victims of GBV, the organisation also runs an artist programme in which a team of artists develops skits, songs, and other forms of drama that deal with unequal power relations between men and women, gender-based violence, and HIV and AIDS. The team also do ambush-theatre on the streets and in market places, followed by guided discussions on the topics covered.
Contact MEGEN mentomen@femnet.or.ke
2. Musasa Project - Zimbabwe
The Musasa Project is a Zimbabwean non-governmental organisation (NGO) that works to challenge cultural values and community attitudes that condone and justify violence against women. The project provides shelter as well as legal and counselling services to women and also works to create awareness about domestic violence and its effects on the social and economic development of Zimbabwe. To build awareness and change prevailing social attitudes that support GBV, Musasa organises annual media campaigns, conducts radio discussions, and offers gender sensitive training for community representatives and service providers.
Contact Linda Musiyiwa director@musasaproject.co.zw
3. Shukumisa - South Africa
Launched on November 2008 in South Africa, the Shukumisa (to stir and shake up) Campaign is a national initiative launched by the National Working Group on Sexual Offences calling on the state to account for its responses to survivors of sexual violence. The project is a product of 26 organisations working with adult and child survivors of sexual violence to ensure that effective and appropriate laws around sexual offences are passed. The purpose of the Shukumisa campaign is to monitor the implementation of laws and policies relevant to sexual offences and hold service providers to account for ineffective implementation.
Contact Lisa Vetten lisa@tlac.org.za
4. Through Our Eyes - Guinea, Liberia
The American Refugee Committee International (ARC) and Communication for Change (C4C) undertook a community-based media project designed to raise awareness of, and help to prevent, gender-based violence (GBV) in conflict-affected communities. Following a 2-week training workshop, local teams comprised of ARC field staff and community members began producing local-language videotapes on various forms of GBV, their consequences, and ARC's prevention and response programmes. Through local screenings of these tapes and accompanying discussion sessions, community members shared experiences and gained information about available services, including legal aid, counselling, and skills training programmes that are designed to foster women's economic independence.
Contact Lauren Goodsmith lauren_goodsmith@hotmail.com OR Connie Kamara ConnieK@archq.org
5. SASA! - Uganda
SASA! is a methodology and approach designed by the Uganda-based NGO Raising Voices, which works with women and children to explore the gender aspects of power and to address the link between violence against women (VAW) and HIV/AIDS. Sasa is a Kiswahili word for “now!” and also serves as an acronym for the key components of the programme: Start, Awareness, Support, and Action. The programme seeks to prevent VAW and HIV by changing the attitudes and behaviours that perpetuate power imbalances in relationships between men and women. The programme provides organisations with practical materials and information that they can incorporate into their existing HIV and VAW programmes. In January 2008, Raising Voices, in partnership with the Center for Domestic Violence Prevention, started using SASA! in four communities in Kampala, Uganda.
Contact info@raisingvoices.org
6. Intercultural Dialogue on Violence against Women - Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Morocco, Spain
In 2007, the Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (MIGS) carried out a project designed to enhance the active participation of women in intercultural dialogue about violence against women, as well as to develop and diffuse strategies for overcoming discrimination and violence against women in the Euro-Med region. With funding from the Anna Lindh Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures, MIGS and 4 co-participating organisations from the 5 countries in the region each identified 5 women from diverse backgrounds to discuss and identify areas of common concern.
Contact Rania Tollefson rania@medinstgenderstudies.org
EVALUATIONS
7. Stop The Bus! I Want To Get On: Lessons From Campaigns to End Violence Against Women in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Ghana
By Kathleen Dey, Judith Chiyangwa, Netsy Fekade Odoi, Rachel Carter, and Kanwal Ahluwalia
This report from 2008 offers lessons learned from the "Stop the Bus" campaigns which were run in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Ghana to raise awareness about and contribute to a reduction in violence against women. The report includes lessons and guidelines for NGOs and community-based organisations (CBOs) to encourage community awareness and understanding of gender-based violence, as well as to help those organisations build campaign strategies, and monitor their impact effectively. The report highlights the fact that community involvement and ownership of the campaign initiatives is essential to their long-term success.
8. Changing Gender Norms Among Women and Men in Uganda: A Report on the Evaluation of African Transformation
By Carol Underwood, Jane Brown, Donna Shrard, Basil Tushabe, and Afeefa Abdur-Rahman
This report from 2007 documents the findings of a study that evaluated the effects of participation in the African Transformation (AT) programme in Uganda. The programme is designed to promote gender equity, participatory development, and community action, and comprises a kit containing a series of video profiles of women and men who overcame gender barriers and challenges in their own lives and became role models to others. Participants view and discuss the profiles during interactive community-based workshops led by trained facilitators. The report notes that while gender norms are influenced positively by participation in the workshops, transforming deep-seated norms takes time. The authors found that those who participated in more sessions registered greater change, suggesting that participation over a series of sessions is needed to allow for the penetration and exploration of ideas.
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DENOUNCING GENDER VIOLENCE IN THE MEDIA
From November 25 to December 10, the Women's International Network of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC-WIN) will participate in the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence with an internet campaign designed to denounce gender violence in the media and transform media into a catalyst to end violence against women. Click here for more information and to download audio files.
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STRATEGIC THINKING
9. Communicating Change: Learning from Women's Rights Activists’ Campaigns for Legal and Policy Change
By Alexandra Pittman and Anna Workman
This resource report analyses activists' experiences in communicating change for women's equal rights. Seventy women’s rights campaigns that intended to achieve legislative or policy change at the local, national, or international levels were studied. This Global Strategies for Change (GSC) project was inspired by the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) International Forum in 2005 and was conducted from May 2006 to May 2008 with the support of an AWID Forum seed grant.
10. Early Sexual Debut, Sexual Violence, and Sexual Risk-Taking among Pregnant Adolescents and Their Peers in Jamaica and Uganda
By Maxine Wedderburn ,Jennifer Wagman, Cynthia Waszak Geary, Joy Noel Baumgartner, Heidi Toms Tucker, and Laura Johnson
From the Youth Research Working Paper Series of Family Health International (FHI), this eighth Working Paper, published in 2008, focuses on early sexual début and experiences of sexual coercion/violence as they relate to each other and to unintended adolescent pregnancy. The purpose of the project was to identify risk factors for adolescent pregnancy in order to inform culturally appropriate programs that aim to prevent unintended adolescent pregnancy. The research showed that for many of the participants, their first sex was coerced, and that therefore the timing of their sexual début was not a choice.
11. Women's Property Rights, HIV and AIDS, and Domestic Violence: Research Findings from Two Rural Districts in South Africa and Uganda
By Hema Swaminathan, Kimberly Ashburn, Aslihan Kes, Nata Duvvury, Cherryl Walker, Michael Aliber, Busi Nkosi, Margaret A. Rugadya, and Kamusiime Herbert
This report, published in 2007 by the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) in collaboration with the Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa and Associates for Development in Uganda, explores the links between women's ownership of housing and land and their vulnerability to domestic violence and HIV and AIDS. Based on in-depth interviews with 120 women from sites in Uganda and South Africa, the report argues that while property ownership is not easily linked to women's ability to prevent HIV infection, it may help mitigate HIV/AIDS' social impacts by allowing women to leave violent or unpleasant situations.
12. Understanding Men's Health and Use of Violence: Interface of Rape and HIV in South Africa
By Rachel Jewkes, Yandisa Sikweyiya, Robert Morrell, and Kristin Dunkle
This report, published by the Gender and Health Research Unit of the Medical Research Council (MRC) in 2009, is based on research that sought to understand the prevalence of rape perpetration in a random sample of community-based adult men, to understand factors associated with rape perpetration, and to describe intersections between rape, physical intimate partner violence, and HIV. The authors argue that high levels of rape are rooted in negative conceptions of masculinity and that the problem cannot solely be addressed through criminal prosecution, but requires a broader approach that addresses these conceptions of manhood.
13. Women Building Peace and Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict-Affected Contexts: A Review of Community-Based Approaches
By Annalise Moser
This United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) document focuses on specific thematic areas of good practice in the prevention of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and women's participation in peacebuilding. The study was developed as a background document to inform programming and advocacy within the context of UNIFEM programming, and builds on country-level visits conducted in early 2007.
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MORE INFORMATION ON GENDER ON THE SOUL BEAT AFRICA WEBSITE
Click here for more information on gender and gender-based violence on the Soul Beat Africa website.
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MATERIALS
14. Empowering Messages - What You Should Know: Strategic Communication and Gender-based Violence
This guide, published by Media Monitoring Africa in 2009, is designed to be a comprehensive resource that specifically addresses the development and implementation of communication around issues related to gender-based violence. The guidelines are a tool for those involved in work against gender-based violence and include core concepts such as understanding your intended audience and how to approach monitoring and evaluation.
15. Nobody Is Immune: Gender Against Men [Documentary]
Produced by the Refugee Law Project in June 2009, this documentary explores "the hidden world of sexual and gender-based violence against men in the conflicts of the Great Lakes region." According to the producers, it is a movie about men, violence, and the inability of society to recognise or address male vulnerability in times of conflict. The movie is intended to raise as many questions as it gives answers in its quest for an honest examination of the gender stereotypes underlying mainstream approaches to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).
16. Addressing Gender-Based Violence Through Community Empowerment
This publication was written for community members who attended workshops held by the Gender Research and Advocacy Project of the Legal Assistance Centre in Namibia during 2008. The workshops were held across the 13 regions of Namibia in an attempt to identify some of the root causes of gender-based violence and help communities identify preventative actions they could implement, based on their understanding of the underlying issues in their community. It was written to serve as a record of the information discussed and the ideas generated during these workshops and to communicate this information to community members unable to attend.
17. Programming to Address Violence Against Women: 10 Case Studies
This 106-page volume documents the experience of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with addressing many forms of violence against women. Intended primarily for development practitioners and others seeking to change attitudes and practices, it offers lessons that can help scale up responses and confront the problem on a wider scale. The lessons are gleaned from case studies of the following 10 countries: Bangladesh, Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Romania, Sierra Leone, and Turkey. The 2007 review is part of a series of explorations that UNFPA has undertaken over the past several years to look at the cultural dimensions of gender equality and reproductive health and rights.
18. Defying the Odds: Lessons Learnt from Men for Gender Equality Now
This book contains experiences and lessons learned from gender justice activists involved in Men for Gender Equality Now (MEGEN) in Kenya. In the book, men share their personal experiences as individuals and as changemakers. Besides personal stories told by activists, this 2008 publication also includes short briefs on the work of MEGEN Kenya, highlighting the challenges, successes, and lessons learnt in different programme areas.
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For more gender-related previous issues of The Soul Beat newsletter see:
The Soul Beat 110 - Involving Boys and Men
The Soul Beat 93 - Gender and Gender-based Violence
The Soul Beat 51 - MDG 3: Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women
Click here to view all archived editions of The Soul Beat Newsletter.
