Skills and Technical Education Programme (STEP) in partnership with award winning Art and Global Health Centre Africa (ArtGlo) will be working with technical colleges across the country to raise awareness about Gender Based Violence (GBV) at colleges and for each college to create and implement effective GBV reporting systems.

Selected teachers and students will learn about participatory, arts-based techniques and use those skills to develop awareness campaigns about GBV on their college campuses.

Some of the activities they will use include music, poetry, and participatory theatre, which have been a successful tool for engaging with people in an open and collaborative way.

Art and Global Health Africa recently won the Sustainable Development Goal Action Award in the creative category for their Make Art / Stop AIDS: Youth Project, at the SDG Global Festival of Action.  This award recognizes efforts by those who are advancing the global movement for the Sustainable Development Goals in the most transformative, impactful and innovative way.  ArtGlo was a successful winner out of more than 2000 applications received from 142 countries.  The award recognises the contributions the project made towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of “Good Health & Well-being” and “Gender Equality.”

Gender and Education Specialist Jean Munro says the Skills and Technical Education Programme is looking forward to work with the award winning Art and Global Health Centre Africa in ending gender based violence in technical colleges.

“Winning the award shows that the organization has an effective approach to deal with challenges youth are facing in the country. It is exciting to note that ArtGlo is bringing their creative approach to tackle GBV in Malawi’s technical colleges,” she says.

Munro congratulated the organization for being recognized on an international stage.

Students, teachers, and administrators from fifteen colleges across the country will learn how to address issues around GBV through participatory arts. The project participants, including principals, student council representatives, and heads of departments from each college will then create an artistic intervention that addresses the GBV that they see affecting their learning community. Additionally, each college will create and implement a reporting and response system for incidences of GBV.  The program will run from May 2018 till February 2019.

Skills and Technical Education Programme (STEP) is an initiative funded by the European Union and partially implemented by UNESCO.