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Anti-violence youth campaign launched

‘I Have the Power to End Gender Based Violence (GBV)’ is an awareness campaign featuring a collection of six video-based messages with solutions to address and prevent violence amongst adolescents ages 13–17 and their caregivers.

The campaign takes on intimate partner violence, family life violence, gender-based violence, violence against women and girls, and domestic violence. It was designed and developed by children, teens, and strategic communication specialists.

By bringing awareness to a young audience, the campaign seeks to ensure they have the tools to prevent violence as they grow and as they start and nurture their own families.

Videos in the campaign teach conflict resolution, self-regulation, and de-escalation techniques; give tips on dealing with unwanted sexual advances; and teach the difference between good secrets and bad secrets.

One video will be in Spanish, to increase the awareness and prevention of child abuse in the Spanish-speaking community for children ages 5–12 and their caregivers. All the videos use age-appropriate language, and it is hoped that parents and other caregivers will also benefit from the campaign.

Child rights civil society organisation, Createfuturegood hopes the project will establish a working alliance of CSOs, interest groups and media partners for continued work to build awareness on human rights issues, and bring about changes in thinking, attitudes, and behaviour. The 16 days are observed globally from November 25—December 10 annually; the campaign runs a few days longer.

“The response by CSOs, interest groups and media on so many levels has been amazing,” said Createfuturegood CEO Nadella Oya. “To know that over 30 organisations agree to promote a unified message on ending violence is a major step to raising awareness.”

The monitoring, evaluation and learning aspects of the project are expected to gather data to devise behaviour and attitudinal change strategies to address the problem of GBV across different audiences.

“We are determined to achieve a change in behaviour and culture around violence. If we as a people REALLY want to stop violence, murder, abuse, then we have to start with our children. We must teach them useable methods to prevent violence. If they can practise these as they grow, then they should be better able to face difficult situations as adults. Behaviour change will take some years, and it starts with lessons now”, she said.

“The children will learn  methods to protect themselves now—and might even teach the adults around them,” Oya said.

“This campaign is very important in that you get the voices of young people offering measures that young people can use to de-escalate violence, as well as tools to solve problems long before they reach adulthood. The aim is to reduce or eliminate the culture of violence, especially family violence, in the future,” said Jacquie Burgess of partner organisation, The Network of NGOs of Trinidad and Tobago for the Advancement of Women.

The ‘I Have the Power to End Gender Based Violence’ campaign runs from November 24—December 12 in Trinidad and Tobago, on participating radio and TV stations, which include TTT, CCN, TV6, Gayelle The Caribbean, Tobago Channel 5, and Tobago Updates.

 

For more information, visit www.facebook.com/createfuturegood/