16 Days Of Activism: November 25 – December 10, 2015
Nov 24, 2015
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16 Days Of Activism: November 25 – December 10, 2015
The United Nations defines violence against women as “Any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.”
“Hannah was raped. It does not end there. Hannah was disembodied; skull fractured, glue found in her eyes, broken bones in multiple areas of her body, her spinal cord – shattered. When Hannah was found, only a pink brassiere covered the top part of her body. Her legs were sprawled apart, the only cover came from the beach’s sand and seaweed. Hanna was raped and her murder, an inhumane act of violence.” – Fatou Wurie – CEO Conceptor, Innovator of The Survivor Dream Project, Sierra Leone
Fatou’s chilling account of a brutally murdered teenager found on a beach in the Sierra Leone capital this August was particularly disturbing because it appeared to highlight an alarming rise in the number of unsolved assaults on women and young girls in the west African nation. The incident led to a massive street protest by activists and civil society groups calling on the government to take a stand and to halt the violence.
“Hannah’s death reminds us all that women’s bodies in Sierra Leone are under heavy siege. That Sierra Leone’s highly patriarchal society still subjugates with structural discrimination in practice, custom, and law, with a plethora of women still facing suppression in education, employment and politics. Sexual violence has always been rampant in Sierra Leone – the rhetoric that Ebola has induced a spike in sexual violence undermines the reality that little has been done to improve social and economic options for women.” – Fatou Wurie
In Ghana, women make up just over half of the population, yet they still play a subservient role to men despite the constitution guaranteeing equal roles. According to the Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Centre, under our customary systems women are expected to give precedence to men in all things creating a position where Ghanaian women are equated to children…this has meant that many women have accepted the situation which allows men to “punish” them for their alleged disobedience.
Daily reports of murder, abduction and rape or defilement of women and minors, a member of Parliament’s remarks about punishing adulterous women and two high-profile alleged rape cases involving media celebrities, are a painful reminder of the distance we still have to cover in order to push against the denigration of women, persistent disregard for women’s sexual and personal rights and the prejudices and injustices suffered by women corageous enough to charge men with rape.
Last December Daboya Mankarigu Nelson Abudu Baani, a member of parliament in northern Ghana spoke against a new intestate succession bill saying that it could cause “customary anarchy” and recommended that women who cheat on their spouses be stoned or hanged. The bill was aimed at giving more rights to women with regards to the property of their deceased husbands.
His remarks were condemned by women’s rights activists and members of the public who called for his resignation but he refused to do so, clinging to his seat until he lost a re-election bid this past weekend.
Nineteen year old Ewuraffe Orleans Thompson accused Ghanaian television celebrity Kwesi Kyei Darkwa of raping her in a hotel bathroom in March, but withdrew her case against him a few weeks later, citing pressure from the media frenzy the story generated.
A few weeks later, a radio presenter’s report of her abduction and gang rape, while pictures of her nude body allegedly taken during the rape were circulated widely on the internet, caused a similar furor. The abduction story was condemned by the government and caused public outcry, but a police investigation into the case of Miss Ada, a popular host of YFM radio station in the western, ran into problems when she was unable to provide evidence for her abduction.
What all three incidents had in common were the profusion of hateful, sexist and misogynistic reactions they generated among the Ghanaian public.
Elsewhere on the continent, comments by Grace Mugabe, wife of Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe last week, sparked off a twitter stream of protest.
“If you walk around wearing mini skirts displaying your thighs and inviting men to drool over you, then you want to complain when you have been raped? It’s unfortunate because it will be your fault,’ Grace Mugabe said during a political rally this month.
As we join in the UN’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence Campaign this year, we invite you to tell your stories, highlight atrocities in your countries and tweet your comments, opinions and thoughts to our website, facebook page or twitter feed @awdf01 using the hashtags: #orangetheworld #16days
Sincerely,
Amba Mpoke-Bigg AWDF, Communications and Fundraising Specialist
Key Dates during the 16 days campaign:
November 25: The International Day For the Elimination of Violence Against Women
December 1: World AIDS Day
December 3: International Day for Persons with Disabilities
December 10: International Human Rights Day
Every year AWDF supports women’s groups over the continent to highlight the 16 Days campaign with a small grant. This ensures that we are are constantly keeping the fire burning and fulfilling one of our main missions of advocacy and the promotion of women’s rights.
AWDF will also support initiatives by women’s groups to address the stigma and discrimination against women living with HIV-AIDS. This year we are proud to support 40 organizations in their campaigns to mark 16 Days and World AIDS Day
AWW15 Participant Billie McTernan Gets Selected for 2016 Writivism Workshop
Nov 23, 2015
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News
AWW15 Participant Billie McTernan Gets Selected for 2016 Writivism Workshop
Writivism 2016 Workshops
Billie Adwoa McTernan has been chosen to be one of a select number of emerging writers for Writivism’s 2016 workshops to be held in Accra, Kampala, Abidjan, Dakar and Goma. Billie was among 22 writers selected for the AWDF’s Women Writers Workshop held in Uganda in July this year.
The workshops will be facilitated by Yewande Omotoso, Sitawa Namwalie, Mamadou Diallo, Edwige Dro and Richard Ali-Mutu.
Billie covers the arts, cultural and political affairs across Africa, with a particular focus on Ghana, Nigeria and West Africa. Having begun her writing career as a journalist she has covered a wide range of subjects, from art festivals in Accra and Dakar to elections and presidential interviews in Nigeria and Liberia. In this capacity she has contributed to a number of publications including The Africa Report, The Guardian UK, Associated Press and Africa is a Country. As a fiction writer she writes short stories and is currently working on her first short film.
Writivism is a project of the Centre for African Cultural Excellence (CACE) created by Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire, Ateenyi Kyomuhendo and Naseemah Mohamed in 2012. Its main goal is to identify and connect talented and passionate aspiring writers to experienced and successful writers to help improve the quality of their work and to boost the production of and consumption of African literature on the continent.
We wish her every success and congratulate her on her selection.
Whenever I look at my cabbage, I smile to myself. I have lived with HIV for 15 years but I am still strong. Thank you CHODO for supporting me”
Grantee Highlight: Vegetable Farming Gives New Hope to Women Living with HIV in Sironko
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economic empowerment and livelihoods, grantees, HIV-AIDS
Grantee Highlight: Vegetable Farming Gives New Hope to Women Living with HIV in Sironko
In Uganda, HIV and AIDS infection rates continue to increase in both rural and urban areas despite aggressive public awareness campaigns by both public and private institutions. This development has had a unique effect on the lives of women. With married women, for instance, the loss of a spouse often leaves them to fend for themselves and their children who are sometimes also infected with the virus. The Community Holistic Development Organization, (CHODO) a local community-based organization that focuses mainly on economic empowerment for women living with HIV and AIDS, has been working to address this issue.
Equipped with a grant from the African Women’s Development Fund, CHODO set out to train 308 selected HIV infected women in the Sironko district of Uganda in vegetable farming. Through vegetable farming the women inherit a sustainable source of income and provide life-long skills that would be useful in other areas of economic activity.
To start with, the women identified pieces of suitable farmland before being trained in fertilizer spraying, seed selection and other farming methods. Soon, cabbage gardens sprung up in various areas of the Sironko district of Uganda.
To create a ‘sustainability’ cycle, the vegetables grown were then sold to generate income that was invested as start up capital for their own businesses. Some of the capital was invested into livestock rearing. The women were given technical assistance and training on how to manage their livestock rearing projects. This gave them a sense of ownership and self-confidence in their abilities and creative capacities.
CHODO has been successful in improving the livelihoods of the women living with HIV, who do not earn an income . In most cases such women experience discrimination and are likely to die faster due to lack of financial support and marginalisation from their communities. Through the project, the women have been able to develop a consistent source of income allowing them to become economically cally independent.
‘As an HIV positive person, I feel proud that I am doing something that will enable me live a better life. ‘Harriet Namono, one of the beneficiaries of the vegetable garden project elatedly reported.
“All I can say is I am very grateful and very happy.” Modesta Nakusi, another beneficiary shared. “Whenever I look at my cabbage, I smile to myself. I have lived with HIV for 15 years but I am still strong. Thank you CHODO for supporting me.’
The success of the project is also challenging the community’s’ negative perceptions about women living with HIV, recognising them as still significant and productive agents in the country’s economic development.
CHODO intends to undertake another project to help the rural women diversify and sustain their household incomes by engaging in both farm activity and off-farm business during different seasons.
Women suffered disproportionately in combating Ebola, mainly because of their traditional roles as nurses and healthcare workers, yet the part they played as agents of change and frontline partners in curbing the epidemic has been largely overlooked by international media”
Grantee Highlight: Wealth for Smallholder Women Peanut Farmers in Muwena
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economic empowerment and livelihoods, grantees
Grantee Highlight: Wealth for Smallholder Women Peanut Farmers in Muwena
Women smallholder farmers comprise an average of 43 percent of the agricultural labour force of developing countries. In Africa in particular, many communities depend on women to grow most of the food they eat, yet they continue struggle with lack of access to capital, land, agricultural inputs, tools and technology needed to move up to large scale farming.
In Muwena, a town of Livingstone Province in the South of Zambia, Women smallholder farmers have been cultivating peanut on a small scale using traditional outmoded means for consumption and sale. However these methods prevent the women from earning any meaningful income to meet their social needs and ensure household food security.
In 2014 Children with Future in Zambia (CWFiZ) a local NGO working to promote the economic and social welfare of vulnerable groups, particularly women and orphans, received a grant from the African Women’s Development (AWDF) for a capacity building project for women farmers in Muwena.
CWFiZ, worked with 225 women smallholder peanut farmers, training them in improved farming methods and the processing and marketing of peanut to increase the efficiency of their farm business.The project aimed to facilitate a transformation of peanut farming in the Muwena community to achieve a greater degree of food security among selected women smallholder farmers while increasing competitiveness in the domestic markets.
The program sought to build the skills of smallholder women farmers, training them in improved production and post-harvest handling practices that include improved plant seed varieties and access to quality agricultural inputs, tools and support services.
The project also provided women smallholder farmers with a peanut butter processing plant and a housing facility. The women have come out with test peanut butter products which were exhibited at fair in Lusaka in June 2015. The product has attracted a lot of attention from consumers, a positive sign for the women cultivators and processors.
The label of the peanut butter has the inscription ‘Nsabo Yetu’, meaning ‘our wealth,’ reflective of the benefit derived from the women’s hard work. The product has been certified awaiting large scale production and marketing.
…most people assume that someone with AIDS is immoral. They do not realize that there are other ways of transmission. They simply believe that if someone has AIDS, they must have acquired it through immoral behaviour. They associate you with criminals and hence discriminate against you”
Grantee Highlight: Tuli Wamu Nawe- Fighting Stigma and Discrimination to end the spread of HIV/AIDS
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grantees, HIV-AIDS
Grantee Highlight: Tuli Wamu Nawe- Fighting Stigma and Discrimination to end the spread of HIV/AIDS
Public Health Ambassadors Uganda (PHAU), a not-for-profit youth-led organisation, and a grantee of the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF), is running an anti-HIV stigma and discrimination project focusing specifically on young women and girls living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda. Dubbed “Tuli Wamu Nawe,” meaning “We are together with You”, the project aims to use peer education and training to help share knowledge about the effects of stigma and discrimination on young women and girls’ HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment efforts in Uganda. Additionally, the experiences keeps women and girls from actively participating in the social, economic and political development of their local communities and the country at large.
Under the Tuli Wamu Nawe project, 25 women and girls with HIV/AIDS will be mentored and assisted with setting-up sustainable income generation activities (IGA). PHAU will work to forge partnerships with key community stakeholders and train peer educators and volunteers in HIV education activities to ensure that change is sustained long-term. The project will benefit 5 selected communities within Wakiso and Kampala districts.
Follow the project activities on the PHAU social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube using the following hashtags #TuliWamuNawe #AcceptMe #EmbraceMe #WomenandGirlsagainstStigma. The project has also been featured on Women Deliver’s blog.
Some of PHAU’s other HIV/AIDS awareness education campaigns:
2015 International Women’s Day: Make it Happen campaign focusing on young women and girls
International Condom Day 2015 : ‘Condoms are Cool’ campaign
“I learnt that it’s never the victim’s fault to be raped”
Grantee Spotlight: Boxgirls Kenya wins International Award for Outstanding Work
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News
Grantee Spotlight: Boxgirls Kenya wins International Award for Outstanding Work
Monday 16 November 2015
PRESS RELEASE: Kenyan girl-led charity wins international award for outstanding work
Local charity Boxgirls Kenya is one of just 20 organisations from around the world to receive an inaugural With and For Girls Award.
The With and For Girls Awards is a global initiative to identify and support strong local organisations working with and for girls.
The charity – based in Nairobi, Kenya – is recognised for its work to create positive change by using sports to challenge stereotypes related to gender and sport.
Boxgirls Kenya will receive the Award at a London ceremony on Monday 16 November 2015, where representatives from the winning organisations will attend along with people from a range of foundations, multilateral agencies, INGOs and prominent influencers within the sector.
Nairobi is a dangerous place to be a girl. During the post-election violence in 2008, many girls and women from Boxgirls Kenya’s community were raped and left traumatised.
An increase in sexual violence, combined with no platform for girls’ voices to be heard, has left young women from this community vulnerable.
Most girls drop out of school due to poverty and girls lack access to quality healthcare.
Boxgirls Kenya provides over 1,000 girls with healthcare services, leadership and entrepreneurship skills.
The organisation trains female boxing coaches and life skills facilitators who are then equipped to run weekly sports training sessions for girls across the community.
Boxgirls Kenya also campaigns for girls to remain in school until they complete their education and engages community members with its work, harnessing their involvement in demanding the rights of girls.
The organisation has championed Kenyan women in sports and one beneficiary, Elizabeth Andiego, was the first female boxer to represent Kenya at the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Muna Wehbe, CEO of Stars Foundation – “Despite the critical role that women and girls play in sustainable development, the World Bank estimates that less than two cents of every dollar spent on international aid is directed towards adolescent girls. The With and For Girls Award provides flexible funding to grassroots girl-focused NGOs, empowering them to invest their funds where they need them most. We want to shine a spotlight on these outstanding local organisations and encourage more funders to support girls in their role as vital agents of change within our sector.”
As part of the award package, Boxgirls Kenya will receive US$15,000 of flexible funding and capacity building support.