On the 28th of August, WOFAD traveled to Imbwa to bring the community a bicycle ambulance that had been donated by the World University Service of Canada-Malawi. This donation came in response to concerns raised during a community visit WOFAD conducted in June 2013 whereby, community members spoke out about the long distances people had to travel to seek health care. After hearing their concerns, WOFAD and WUSC-Malawi quickly worked to mobilize resources to ensure this issue would be addressed.
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Awareness and Lobbying for Traditional and Religious Leaders on SRHR and Harmful Practices10/4/2013 From July 25th-26th, WOFAD conducted two awareness and lobbying meetings with 40 traditional and religious leaders from T/A Kuntaja, Kunthembwe and Machinjiri. These meetings created a forum to raise awareness among key duty bearers about the sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) of women living with HIV and AIDS (WLHIV). Moreover, WOFAD used the meeting to address the need to stop harmful cultural and religious practices that violate the SRHR of community members.
At the end of these meetings, brochures and booklets of translated Chichewa laws and policies were provided to the leaders to further distribute them to community members. At the end of the meetings, all the leaders committed to promoting and protecting the SRHR of WLHIV in their respective communities. Furthermore, this meeting allowed WOFAD to discuss with the leaders how to move forward in the project and to secure their role as partners in this initiative. In July, WOFAD trained 20 peer educators from across Blantyre District with individuals coming from T/A Kuntaja, Kunthembwe and Machinjiri. Following this training, peer educators were equipped with bicycles and will be traveling through their communities to:
Some of the Chichewa material used for the training can be found here: Peer Educator Reference Manual
Also, please download the WOFAD Peer Educator Training Report to get a better idea of how the training was conducted. At the end of June, WOFAD spent 2 days training peer educators to be SRHR Promoters and Counselors. WOFAD completed a series of training videos in Chichewa to help illustrate some of the key violations occurring in the region. Please find them below: Last month, youth from Chirimba began meeting in front of WOFAD’s office, marking the start of WOFAD’s youth led Young Advocates! Group.
The group of youth have been meeting every Friday to discuss issues affecting youth and to engage in music, dance, drama, visual arts and sports. On June 5th, Code Sangala – a Malawian radio personality and music artist – came to visit the youth to motivate them and share his experiences. See the pictures from this meeting below! From 31st May to June 1st, 5 radio broadcasters (Zodiak, Joy FM and Islam Radio) and 1 journalist (The Nation) attended a training to gain the knowledge and skills needed to deliver effective reporting and media programming on sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) issues for the Blantyre District. The SRHR of WLHIV continues to be violated due to the lack of awareness, commitment and action in upholding these rights amongst duty bearers at all levels. To help address these challenges, Participatory Radio Campaigns (PRC) will be used to provide knowledge, promote dialogue and begin mobilizing people around SRHR issues. Training media personnel in Blantyre on SRHR and advocacy represents a critical first step in engaging the media in:
On May 19th, 2013 Women for Fair Development (WOFAD) attended Malawi’s 30th International Aids Candlelight Memorial in Mwanza. The event was held in Mwanza, an areas also known as a High Risk Corridor, due to the high rate of HIV infections resulting from cross-border trade. The theme of the event, ‘In Solidarity’, sought to emphasize the importance of joining hands and working together to respond to HIV. It is only as a community, working together with people living with HIV, that an effective HIV response can be mounted. It is together that we must advocate for universal access to human rights and improved quality of treatment, prevention and support services. The event was organized by the National Aids Commission and the Government of Malawi. WOFAD was invited to the event as a partner to the World University Service of Canada-Malawi. For the event, WOFAD was able to host a table and increase awareness on the organization’s activities by engaging with the people and media present. WOFAD’s work surrounding nutrition and herbal medicine generated a lot of interest and we were extremely happy to be able to share our work. From 29th-30th April 2013, 9 WOFAD staff and volunteers completed a training program on Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) and Advocacy to develop their capacity to effectively raise awareness, deliver training, provide support and carry out advocacy on SRHR issues with women living with HIV and AIDS. The training was held at Mkango Lodge and facilitated by the SRHR Technical Advisers Believe Dhliwayo from the Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS and Kristina Hunter from WOFAD.
Please find the report for the training, including WOFAD’s Action Plan and Position Paper for advocacy initiatives in the coming year. WOFAD SRHR Training Report Currently, WOFAD is working to implement the We Have Rights Too! Project – Protecting the Rights of Women and Girls Living with HIV and AIDS, funded by the Tilitonse Fund. From December 2012-February 2013, WOFAD conducted a baseline survey to assess the state of sexual and reproductive health rights among women living with HIV/AIDS in TA Kuntaja, Machinjiri and Kunthembwe. The same survey was also conducted by The Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS in Nkhotakota District. Please download the surveys (summary or full version) from the links below: In the month of December, WOFAD conducted a community awareness campaign to ‘Question Violence Against Women: Start Asking, Start Changing!’ Here are some photos from our work on this initiative. |
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