FundLife Holds Capacity Building on Gender-Based Violence on April 20 and 21, 2024

As part of FundLife Leadership Academy: Reach To Teach Project, FundLife organized a two-day Capacity Building on Gender-Based Violence on April 20 and 21, 2024. The training aims to equip those who are directly working with project beneficiaries with knowledge of laws related to gender-based violence (GBV) and raise their awareness on protection issues so they can properly respond to these cases and support their students should these cases happen in the community.  A total of 30 participants from different partner senior high schools, Fundlife Youth Mentors, and Sangguniang Kabataan representatives attended the two-day capacity building.

Ms. July Ruth Martija, a registered social worker at the Municipal Social Welfare Office in  Dulag, Leyte, discussed the salient points of key laws related to Gender-Based Violence and Anti-Child Labor during the first day of the training. On the second day, attendees participated in different activities such as role-play, discrimination blankets, and spiderwebs, which allowed them to process the things they had learned during the first day. 

Towards the end of the second day, participants identified the following challenges in schools and community: teenage pregnancy, higher cases of  HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, sexual harassment and sexual abuse, lack of parental guidance, lack of awareness of the referral system and people turning a blind eye despite knowing that gender-based violence is happening in the community. To address these challenges, the group recommended strengthening campaigns, advocacy, and information dissemination on gender-based violence. The importance of capacitating individuals at the barangay level and other agencies who handle GBV and juvenile-related cases was raised, as well as the need to create support groups for survivor victims and allocate resources to these groups. 

Through the two-day capacity building, participants realized the importance of having a supportive and enabling environment so that victim-survivors of abuse will be encouraged to file a complaint, which, for most, is their first brave step toward healing. As for Fundlife, the organization will continue supporting and empowering girls by providing play and learning opportunities that will help develop their skills and character and hopefully help them realize their dreams.