Empower Rwandan women to be community educators

Dear friends of Paper Crown Rwanda, 

It’s Clementine, the Head of Programs and Partnerships at Paper Crown Rwanda (PCR). There is so much excitement happening and I’m so thrilled to be sharing our news with you. Here are a few highlights to give you some insight into what’s been going on over the past 6 months!

- PCR Hosted an incredible event in support of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign where we focused on how using an intersectional approach in gender programming can help increase the rights for girls and women with disabilities. 40 participants attended - representing both international and local NGOs that work with girls and women in Rwanda - who had the opportunity to:

a. learn how gender, ability, age, class, etc. all intersect to impact SRHR services and information for girls with disabilities

b. dissect and discuss their own internal biases towards people with disabilities, and how that can lead to further discrimination

c. hear directly from the experiences and voices of girls and women with disabilities, and what equity looks like from their perspectives

- We completed a cycle of our flagship program, My Voice, My Power (MVMP), directly impacting hundreds of people, and starting a new six-month cycle of our My Voice, My Power project. MVMP aims to empower youth to become community advocates through capacity building around gender, GBV, SRHR, human rights, etc. and we support youth clubs in creating their own advocacy events in their communities. One key highlight that we saw at the end of this project is that all girls (100%) reported that they can say “no” to a boyfriend in case they feel uncomfortable, compared to just 46% at the beginning of the project.

- We have started another cycle of MVMP, and although we are only just beginning the project, we’ve been finding a lot of myths around gender, sex, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and masculinity existing amongst the participants. For example, one boy was resistant to the idea that women can lead, and believed that it is in their DNA as men to be leaders of the household. Others believed that having sex while standing could not result in pregnancy, or believed that sex cured pimples. On the girls side, most were unaware that a constitution of rights exists in Rwanda, and believed that boys have more knowledge when it comes to sex, and due to this belief, felt that they were being manipulated. We are working with these youth to transform the negative and harmful ideas and norms through participatory and interactive sessions with community educators.

- We completed our Annual Report that you can check-out on our website! 

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Thanks to your kind donations towards our newest project, “Empower Rwandan women to be community educators” we have been able to dedicate time, energy, and resources towards building the capacity of future educators so that they are able to lead our gender transformative projects, such as MVMP, on their own. Our lead educator has been working with our new trainers to ensure that these young women are fully prepared to support youth as they embark on a journey of change. This training allows PCR to expand programming and more sustainably contribute towards transforming harmful gender norms in Rwanda! We are so grateful for your donations, and believe that we can hit our fundraising goal soon so that we can continue to bring other women on board. 

The work that we do is critical in Rwanda as violence against girls and women continues to rise in our region. We would not be able to continue without your support, so thank you. I am looking forward to our next update as we work to build a sustainable feminist movement across Rwanda and continue educating youth on the ground.

Thanks again and talk soon!

-  Clementine

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Links:

• Website