By Godwin Otang
Stakeholders and rights advocates have been trained on methods to apply to curb Gender Based Violence (GVB) in four Cross River Local Government Areas of Akpabuyo, Calabar South, Calabar Municipal, and Bakassi.
At a one-day training held on Friday 15 March 2024 a nongovernmental organization – Gender and Development Action (GADA) whose aim is to reduce gender-based violence in the State and the South-South region, said it’s evident women, particularly young girls, experience daily violations ranging from stereotype, neglect and denial of opportunities, have gone unnoticed.
The training focused on gender-based violence, prevention, and response for Community and Crisis Management Teams (CCMT) at community levels, with the theme ‘Building safer communities’ had stakeholders from five communities across four local governments.
The founder of GADA, Ambassador Nkoyo Toyo said the focal point for gender advocacy is about equal and balanced relationships between males and their female counterparts.
“it looks at whoever is disadvantaged and tries to equalize. So if it is a thing that women are disadvantaged which often is the case we tend to work more for women and vice versa, but whenever we see that men sometimes boys, and children like the Skolombo children are disadvantaged we also work for them.”
Also lending her voice, Orokanwan Otu of the Henshaw Town community expressed optimism that the impact of gender-based violence in her community will fade away when they start implementing the ideas and knowledge gained from the training.
“As a team, we will spread out in the community. From there, community members will be able to meet us and share with us what their problems are, and to a great extent, we will be able to solve them.”
A male trainee, Mr. Orok Sunday from the Efut Obufa Esuk community in Calabar South, said the training is key as GBV has led to multiple deaths.
“As representatives of the community we are going back to educate our community for them to stay away from violent activities,” he assured.
The highlight of the training was a drama presentation on Social Behavior Change in Communication (SBCC), the composition, structure, and operational methods.
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