Peacempire SRHR project successfully takes off
October 1 marked the day Peacempire, a top global advocacy solutions for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), successfully launched its social action project in Bangladesh at Murapara Model Pilot High School, which is Narayanganj’s largest. They brought together nearly 1,375 students in a road show after collecting petition signatures of 603 people and completing a workshop attended by 109 people.
On October 8, they also organized a second event at an Islamic seminary called “Baraloo Paragaon Batenia Dakhil Madrasa” in the district, which included drama performance and brainstorming sessions on “Causes, Effects and Preventions of Child Marriage and Gender Violence” that attracted nearly a thousand people and petition signings half that amount.
Sponsored by Women Deliver and Johnson and Johnson, it advances through three major activities, which include workshops, campaigns and building coalition on sexual and reproductive health and rights advocacy to reduce the rate of early forced marriage and violence against women by 30%, involving young people, aged 12 to 25 in the underprivileged areas of Rupganj subdistrict, Bangladesh. The project also forms a coalition bringing together SRHR experts, traditional leaders, political quarters, administrative bodies and victims in monthly social campaigns. Thus it equips young advocates with capacity to effectively respond to child marriage and gender violence through citizen journalism and digital media facilities, ie, common cellphone hotline, social media outlets etc, to ensure legal interventions and public engagements in the area.
The project also brings together SRHR experts, traditional leaders, political quarters, administrative bodies and victims in monthly social campaigns, thus equipping young advocates with capacity to effectively respond to child marriage and gender violence through citizen journalism and digital media facilities, i.e, common cellphone hotline, social media outlets etc, to ensure legal interventions and public engagements in the area.
The project aims to directly benefit over 2000 people, while indirectly outreaching nearly 70000 real and virtual beneficiaries in 34 villages and beyond. The unique outcome of the project is drawing a popular end to the culture of indifference and violence against girls and women in the area. The project seeks to find enduring solutions through the establishment of a permanent website and social media channels and implement other networking methods of reaching to the mass (with blogs, documentary films, etc) which will continue beyond their timeline.
Source: Peacempire takes off, DhakaTribune