Activists in action for the fight against GBV

When we think of activism, we tend to think of large-scale political gatherings, of impassioned people with handmade signs taking to the streets on high-profile issues. But activism isn’t always so noisy. Sometimes, it’s as quiet as the scribbling of a pen in a young girl’s hand.

That’s what we at ChildFund learned over the course of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence (GBV), which took place from Nov. 25-Dec. 10 this year.

When we first announced our participation in the 16 Days — a global campaign that’s been going on for 25 years in 92 countries all over the world — we knew we were a little late to the party. But the campaign quickly gained traction in our country offices around the world, where colleagues launched a flurry of activities to raise awareness about GBV against children.

ChildFund’s Bolivia, Brazil and Mexico offices pioneered successful social media campaigns on Twitter and Facebook, complete with photo booths for staff to share their own messages.

From top: Carmen of ChildFund Bolivia holds a sign that reads, “My life has value. My body is priceless”; staff in Brazil show their support for the 16 Days campaign; Joel of ChildFund Mexico says, “Violence is the antithesis of human dignity and becomes even more acute when it is against women and girls.”

ChildFund The Gambia and one of their local partner organizations led a series of workshops for staff on child marriage, domestic violence and other forms of GBV common in their area.

From top: Madlene of ChildFund The Gambia presents a workshop on domestic violence; staff participate in a roundtable discussion on ending child marriage; The Gambia team wears the T-shirts they made to raise awareness of GBV.

ChildFund Ethiopia served as one of the official sponsors for Plan International’s Ethiopia Children’s Races on Nov. 25. Using the hashtag #safeschool, children at the event shared thoughts and drew pictures of what a violence-free school means to them. The activity tied back to this year’s 16 Days campaign theme, “Together We Can End GBV in Education.”

From top: Children hold up #safeschool signs at the Ethiopia Children’s Race to raise awareness about GBV in schools; children and their families decorate the #safeschool wall with their ideas and drawings; ChildFund Ethiopia staff show off their purple ribbons.

Here at ChildFund’s international headquarters in Richmond, Virginia, we wrote postcards to our senators asking them to cosponsor the Protecting Girls’ Access to Education in Vulnerable Settings Act.

After being passed unanimously by the House of Representatives in October, this important bipartisan bill is now in the Senate. If passed, it’ll strengthen U.S. involvement in helping girls in the developing world get into and stay in school — especially those escaping conflict situations, which make them particularly vulnerable to early marriage, sexual violence and other forms of GBV.

Finally, we asked some friends to join us.

Members of the Richmond-based Girls for a Change organization learn about the 16 Days campaign and write postcards asking Virginia senators to cosponsor S. 1580.

ChildFund partnered with Girls for a Change, a local organization dedicated to empowering young girls of color, to host a postcard-writing activity just for girls at John Marshall High School. Then girls at St. Catherine’s, another local school, wrote some of their own.

Middle-school girls at St. Catherine’s School write their postcards.

By the end of the 16 days, ChildFund and a bevy of smart, strong Richmond girls had written 230 postcards for delivery to the senators. That’s 230 individual voices engaging in civic participation to make a collective difference.

Activism is powerful. While ChildFund’s traditional sponsorship model continues to help improve the lives of individual children all around the world, we also know that one vote in Congress can impact the lives of millions. No marches were held and no signs were made (at least, not in our corner of the world). But child advocates of all ages and nationalities came together for a common purpose: to stamp out GBV. And if 16 days of postcards and purple translates to even one girl or boy being protected from violence, we will have been activists indeed!