She Can: Addressing violence against women in urban contexts

1) Empowerment

The She Can project puts women and girls and the realisation of their rights at the centre of interventions.

Through the project we have trained 3,425 women and girls on their right to live free from the fear of violence, and to raise their awareness of referral pathways for VAWG reporting.

• In Bangladesh, 17 Community Watch Groups across slums in Dhaka and Gazipur undertook weekly safety consultation meetings with their communities. Through 20 girls’ clubs in Kenya, 600 girls have been trained and empowered to lead as peer-educators in their schools and communities on school related sexual and gender based violence.
• In Myanmar, we trained 299 community paralegals who have provided survivor referral support, spearheaded safety mapping exercises, and lobbied local duty bearers to respond to emerging needs.
• In Zimbabwe, we trained 156 community members who established 32 Reflection Action Groups to address VAWG and advocate for gender responsive public services to duty bearers.

2) Solidarity 

Building solidarity has been a key pillar of the She Can project’s transformative change agenda. Empowered community members have liaised with other like-minded groups and individuals to form coalitions to lobby duty bearers to design and implement safe and quality gender responsive public services.

• In Bangladesh 47 engagements were facilitated between women's and girls' coalitions, policy makers and service providers, through which policies and budgets were reviewed for their gender responsiveness using budget monitoring and score cards.
• In Kenya 76 public administrators were trained in Quality Gender Responsive Public Service (GRPS) design and delivery, and 26 stakeholders were trained on laws and policies on VAWG. In Myanmar 16 coalition groups with local rights based organisations have been established.
• In Zimbabwe, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Gender and Transport was engaged by the national Safe Cities Campaign Network with the purpose of advocating for safe and gender responsive public transportation. Read a success story of women advocating for GRPS in the town of Chitungwiza: 'Woman speaks out on gender responsive public service'.

3) Campaigns

Public campaigns on safe cities at the local and national level have been crucial in raising public awareness on the safety experiences of women and girls, as well as have provided a solid platform for advocacy.

• In Bangladesh, 14 public campaigns on safe cities were held.
• In Kenya, ActionAid and implementing partners reached 13,000 community members in safe cities public campaign events using various media and social media platforms, dissemination of IEC materials and through events such as the girls and boys school debates, community sports days, and community festivals.
• In Myanmar, seven regional and seven community level campaigns on public awareness raising were held which received wide media coverage.
• In Zimbabwe, public campaign events targeting various stakeholder groups were held, including commuter omnibus “Kombi” dialogues, market place dialogue, clean-up campaigns, male engagement campaigns and roadshows. In December 2016, 157 commuter omnibuses in the town of Chitungwiza participated in the awareness campaign. See an article on the omnibus awareness campaign here: Commuter operators in campaign on violence against women.

What we’ve learnt: What works in addressing violence against women and girls?

Learning has been a major component of this project as we have sought to build on our understanding of addressing violence against women and girls in urban spaces. Learning workshops, webinars, review meetings and evaluations have all helped us develop the She Can learning brief which highlights six key areas of learning:

1. The most effective interventions are localised, context-specific and driven by women and girls
2. Community volunteers and human rights defenders are amongst the most effective agents of change, but their needs also need to be considered
3. Addressing issues of violence in public spaces in this way also impacts on, and is impacted by, other issues such as Intimate Partner Violence, drug and alcohol abuse, unpaid care work, economic empowerment and political participation
4. The importance of institutional uptake and working with local government and service providers to deliver gender responsive VAWG services
5. The power of mass campaigning and how we can work with the media and local women’s rights networks
6. Effective approaches to measure change in violence in urban spaces

For more details our She Can Learning Brief will be available here in January 2018.