Since 2013, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Sonke have been jointly implementing a programme dubbed ‘A Safer South Africa for Women and Children: Improved Security and Justice for Women, Girls and Boys’. The programme is designed to create a protective environment that will strengthen national prevention mechanisms to reduce violence against women, girls and boys through a primary focus on prevention and a secondary focus on improving access to existing response services by communities. Sonke has been implementing a specific component of the programme – “Mobilised Social Change on Prevention of Violence Against Women and Children” – in the Eastern Cape and Free State provinces.
Sonke facilitates community-based interventions focusing on increasing constructive male involvement in GVB prevention programmes through social mobilisation, community advocacy, and enhancing community capacity to sustain local actions on GBV prevention in six selected districts in the Eastern Cape and Free State (chosen due to their weak human development indicators). The activities of this project are a product of a thorough consultative process with various government departments in both provinces, as well as technical consultation sessions with Sonke.
Through the project, Sonke employs various programme strategies including:
- Capacity building of community-based organisations.
- Social mobilisation targeted at men and boys to change attitudes and norms on GBV and gender equality.
Community action planning to sustain and integrate GBV prevention into local government and related processes.
