How to challenge harmful social and gender norms, and their underlying power structures, in humanitarian contexts?

 

Socio-religious norms are often used to legitimate violence against women and girls, as well as the gender unequal norms that underpin them. Developed by Tearfund, the approach works with faith leaders and communities to challenge such harmful norms. Thereby it offers a key and, to date, under-explored avenue for preventing violence against women.

To maximise learning and adaptability, EFLC included a Research and Learning component, with 3 objectives:

1.Examine the adaptability of the EFLC model to crisis- and displacement-affected contexts;

2.Explore community dynamics and responses to the pilot implementation;

3.Embed community-driven learning into the pilot implementation throughout its life-cycle.

For this last goal, participating communities were involved in community-led monitoring through the production of podcasts. The podcasts helped identify areas of improvement and of continued need, facilitating learning loops and guiding the targeting of next steps and activities. The consolidated podcast can be accessed through this link.

On 8 March - International Women's Day -  we will discuss the results of this project and its  research and learning objectives with experts in the field of SGBV. We hope to receive feedback on our approach and results, exchange with experts on best practises and discuss steps forward to ‘improve approaches to challenge harmful social and gender norms, and their underlying power structures, in humanitarian contexts’.

We would like to invite you to attend this learning event. Please subscribe before Feb 28 by filling out this Google Form. We will send you further details including the Zoom invitation a week before the event.