Violation of women rights is a critical challenge in the slums of Kenya. There is evidence that every other woman has experienced one or another form of violence in their day-to-day life. Verbal abuse, threats and intimidation; Rape and domestic violence are ever present dangers. This project seeks to protect human rights in the slums of Kenya, especially to bring a change to Violence Against Women (rape, domestic violence). Alliance of Slum Media Organizations (ASMO) is implementing Finding her Strong Project in three slum sub-counties of Nairobi (Korogocho, Dandora and Mathare. The project started on January 2020.
ASMO seeks to empower 50 young women and men film makers, photographers and Spoken word artists from the slums of Nairobi to become active human rights defenders using film, photography and spoken word poetry as a means of communicating and advocating for change. ASMO will build capacity of these young artists to be able to understand the depth of human rights dimension, women and child rights, and how to document, produce and communicate and advocate for rights using the arts as the medium. ASMO will track and monitor improvements in understanding of human rights and women rights spectrum of issues; their capacity to document, to arrange and produce artistic productions. We will also track and monitor screenings (number of people reached disaggregated by gender). We expect the films produced will be submitted for competitions in film circuits and ASMO will monitor their performances. The productions will be undertaken with ASMO’s guidance and these will be monitored too.
This is the challenge this programme using the power of media seeks to address. It has several objectives:
1
To increase public awareness and social mobilization to prevent and end violence against women and girls.
2
improve women’s access to education, skills training, and health information.
3
Give a space to women to tell their own stories using storytelling, film, photography and digital literacy.
4
Investing in innovative grassroots networks of women who are making changes within their communities
5
Target men to mobilize against violence against women and girls.
6
To ensure public institutions and service providers are accountable to women and girls for prevention, protection, and response.
A network organization advancing Media, Arts and Culture among marginalized communities and socially excluded groups for total transformation of Afrika.