The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection in partnership with local NGOs has visited several communities in Montserrado county to monitor and evaluate, the implementation of ongoing comprehensive Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) prevention strategy.
ALM learnt The SGBV prevention strategy was developed as part of the Spotlight Initiative (SI) under Outcome 3 of the SI Results Framework to educate community dwellers about harmful social norms practices, and other forms of gender-based violence in the country.
The director for sexual and gender-based violence at the ministry of gender, Viola H. Cooper who disclosed this also expressed gratitude as the process proceeded as planned.
She disclosed that;
Cooper added, “The initiative is 95 per cent working for community residents because evaluation shows they are receiving positive responses, which implies that most of what was learned during training had been implemented at the community level”.
Also, the Executive Director for one of the partnering organizations, George King Sleeves said the challenge has been a lack of continuous support.
“If you want to sustain a project that means when you start it, you have to continue it. Probably not with the same budget, but maybe with a lesser budget to be able to maintain the structure.”
According to him, from July 2020 to now there has been no direct donor support but added that UN Women has been channelling support to the ministry of gender and other CSOs including the system for providing Aid to help sustain the project.
The chairman of Samukai Town, Upper Caldwell, Montserrado county, Clarence A. Zayzay also applauded the spotlight initiative, saying through training, the community has set up a series of activities to help minimize SGBV cases.
“For us at the community level, we used to judge a lot of cases on domestic violence, but since they came in that has been minimized,” Chairman Zayzay added.
Source: New Dawn
