Teach High School Students to Stop Sexual Violence

Our team in Zambia facilitated a sexual violence training workshop with 208 high school students at Mubuyu Christian Academy where our scholars go to school. According to CSO statistics in Zambia, 1 in every 5 adolescents and young women has been a victim of sexual violence. The absence of and weakness in structural policies in the grassroots exacerbates the the situation, as most of the times the family opts to protect perpetrators of sexual violence to maintain good standing in society and to safeguard the family's income. As a result, many cases go unreported and survivors don't get the support that they need.

The training which was led by our survivor leaders, focused on helping the students understand what consent is, what sexual violence is and how it happens and what the students can do both to prevent and to respond to it. The pre-assessment survey that was administered before the workshop showed that a majority of the students had minimal knowledge on the key issues that contribute to sexual violence like the belief that it is a man's right to have sex with a woman. They also didn't understand body autonomy and the fact that they needed to give consent before anything happened to their bodies.

It was exciting to see the post-assessment survey results that showed that most of them an increased level of understanding after the workshop. Some of them also shared personal experiences that they have had and were directed to the resources that would help them process the trauma that they had been through. By the end of the training, all the students indicated that they were better equipped to prevent sexual violence and several of them reached out for mentorship as they wanted to continue learning and growing.