Care International: Gender Based Violence Programme

In Senafe, the programme targets war-affected populations which either fled or remained in enemy occupied territories during the recent conflict. In Gashbarka, the programme targets returnees from Sudan most of who are moving into newly established villages in remote areas. The project focuses on communities in Gashbarka, bringing the National Union of Eritrean Youth and Students (NUEYS) into the partnership.

Using a multi-sectoral, community-based approach, the project aims to raise community awareness on gender-based violence, increase community knowledge of human rights, particularly women’s understanding of their rights, and contribute to the development of appropriate responses for survivors of gender-based violence.

Activities include culturally appropriate methods tailored to the communities such as drama and radio programmes. The methods for raising awareness were chosen based on a qualitative study conducted during the first phase of the project, and include activities that are known to be effective in the target communities for communicating health messages and reaching large populations. Activities include:

• Drama and music: Drama volunteers play live music to attract a large audience and then perform a full-scale drama about GBV and related issues to a typical audience of three to five hundred people.
• Drama and discussion: Drama volunteers perform a short, incomplete drama of less than thirty minutes to a small, same-sex audience of less than twenty people. The community workers facilitate a discussion about the drama.
• Radio programmes: Ten-minute radio programmes are produced and aired every two weeks on the youth radio.
• IEC materials. Leaflets and posters are produced and distributed within chosen communities. The project team determines specific messages, and distribution, if possible, coincides with presentations of drama shows containing the same messages.
• Empowerment of Women: The project also introduced a new component of women’s empowerment to enable women to become self-supporting by diversifying their income generating capabilities using two methods: training women in community savings and credit association (CSCA) methods and by training women in income-generating activity (IGA) methods, such as sewing and tailoring.

Gender, Women, Rights.

The objectives of the organisation are to:

• increase awareness of gender-based violence.
• train service providers to more effectively handle cases of GBV.
• empower women in the chosen communities to become self-supporting.