By Cecilia Yen | Resource Development Coordinator
Dear Friends,
As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to challenge us all, we continue to appreciate your support during these difficult times, which have disproportionately affected the lives of Palestinian women.
At Kayan, we have continued working very hard to address the needs of Palestinian women in this crisis. Our expanded legal and emotional support hotline continues to provide crucial holistic support during this time of uncertainty and pressure. Calls during the crisis have covered an expanded variety of needs, including economic, personal status, workplace rights, or safety at home issues. During the COVID-19 crisis, we have helped 70% of our consultees to take follow up action of some type.
These past few weeks, we have been busy with our annual 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Campaign (November 25th – December 10th). The slogan of our 2020 campaign was, “Don’t leave it in your heart,” a message of empowerment to encourage all women to speak out against violence. In cooperation with a coalition of a dozen other feminist and human rights NGOs, and with the hard work and organizing of our grassroots network of women activists, we are proud to say that, despite all of the challenges presented by the pandemic, we were able to safely host over two dozen public events in this year’s campaign.
This year’s 16 Days Campaign included a wide variety of unique and creative activities targeting different types of audiences. Our campaign launched with a series of public rallies that took place at the same time across six different Arab localities. In these rallies, people marched to protest violence against women while passing out masks with our campaign slogan to symbolize the fact that we are continuing to fight violence through the Covid-19 pandemic. We passed out several thousand masks in two weeks!
Other activities included anti-violence-themed art workshops and public art galleries; awareness-raising workshops for youth; lectures by professional researchers on topics such as domestic violence and sexual harassment; and more. We also presented an online media campaign to further raise awareness about the different forms of gender-based violence, which included sharing eight videos of real stories of women who have escaped the cycle of violence. Thousands of people joined us both on the streets and online to raise awareness about the important issue of gender-based violence, which has only gotten worse during the time of Covid-19.
Supporters, like you, helped us accomplish all of this important work, and ensure that we can continue supporting Palestinian women through this ongoing crisis. We hope you are staying well and safe, and thank you for helping Palestinian women to also be safe, empower themselves, and take action to claim their rights.
Sincerely,
The Kayan Team
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