NETWORKS FOR CHANGE AND WELL-BEING Girl-led ‘From the Ground Up’ Policy Making to Address Sexual Violence in Canada and South Africa
Dear Partners, Colleagues and Friends of Networks4Change Arriving at International Women’s Day, 2021 reminds us of what a different world we now occupy from International Women’s Day, 2020. We never imagined that we would be moving towards the conclusion of our Networks4Change activities in the midst of a public health emergency such as COVID-19. Not surprisingly, the pandemic has exacerbated the inequalities already hammering communities and families across the world, including gendered unemployment and poverty. Linked to these, women and girls’ vulnerability to violence, including genderbased violence has multiplied. A plethora of media reports and a few emerging studies have alerted us to the large increases in domestic violence as families are locked down together. Many of the cases reported involve gender-based violence. Alarmingly, femicides, particularly at the hands of intimate partners, have skyrocketed. Indeed COVID-19 has exposed the huge gaps in our responses aimed at mitigating the negative impacts of the many inequalities we face. With lockdown, girls and young women, for example, have not only lost access to schooling, they have also lost access to the various services they need, including those that keep them safe from violence, including sexual violence. Throughout this period, partners of the Networks4Change have recognized that without sustained targeted interventions informed by the experiences and voices of these marginal groups and their active participation in the development of such programmes, the advances we had made towards addressing girls and young women’s safety in communities would be reversed. In this latest issue of the newsletter we highlight some of the ways the project has been continuing activities in our various sites in Canada and South Africa, and how the girls and young women have been front and centre. This has included winning national awards (see coverage on Indspire), and a dazzling collection of creative writing and other productions called Hope for the Future. This has also been a time of pulling together key lessons from Networks4Change as can be seen in references to lots of new publications and the production of new resources. The theme for International Women’s Day 2021 is Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in a COVID-19 World, a theme which is meant to celebrate “the tremendous efforts by women and girls around the world in shaping a more equal future and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.” We offer a round of applause to the amazing spirit of the girls and young women and all the site leaders in the Networks4Change who are doing just that. Warm regards, Claudia and Lebo
Issue 12: March 2021
Content Hope for the Future
2
Fieldsite Reports
16
Congratulations New Graduates
21
Networks Events
23
Welcome Dr. Deby Maia
26
Publications
27
Partners & Stakeholders
35