Impact

Our first three years, 2018–2020

Faith leaders trained, women and young people reached, and congregations across four countries: the work between 2018 and 2020.

Stories

What this looked like for the people in it

Four accounts from the work between 2018 and 2020.

In her own words

This program that was started has really helped us. In my community, where I live, there is no fighting anymore. When they fight, and I am not afraid to confront them.
As I walk around I hear the neighbors asking, do you know who this is, do you know what she does? This woman is in GBV, she is the one who will report you to the police. I have had men show up on my doorstep in the morning pleading with me and telling me that they will never beat their wives again.
There is a man who married a wife all the way from Mwinilunga and he beat her up all the time. Two weeks have now passed and he has not beat her and each time he sees me he says Mum I will never do that again. Mum have you forgiven me? And I tell him it’s not my place to forgive you. It is God who will forgive you. All I can tell you is that the day you beat your wife, it is not her who will report you to the police, it is me who will report you.
So I wake up every morning and go about my chores wearing my SOV T-shirt and walk around so they can see that I am watching and alert… Yes, I am working…
A Speak One Voice participant

A woman speaks in a hall, hands open in front of her, rows of empty chairs behind.

Malawi, 2020
Four dioceses carried the work when the gatherings stopped
Women’s guilds, youth and men’s groups across four Anglican dioceses
Fifty facilitators had been trained in Lusaka in March 2020, leaving with work plans drawn up by country and diocese. Within weeks, Covid-19 had closed the gatherings those plans depended on.
Malawi went ahead anyway. Across all four of its Anglican dioceses, facilitators took every opportunity of assembled believers, running sessions for guilds, youth and men wherever a group was already meeting, using their own resources.
Anglican dioceses
4
Facilitators trained, March 2020
50
Zambia, 2020
When the rooms closed, the toolkit was rebuilt for radio
Radio listeners across the Copperbelt, and television audiences nationally
Community Learning is built for a room: a facilitator, a group, a flip chart, four steps worked through together. The pandemic removed the room.
Thirteen sessions of community conversation went out on Radio Chengelo instead, developed along the same themes facilitators used in person. Reported cases of violence rose during lockdown, and the broadcasts reached households at the point when the people inside them could not leave.
Community conversations broadcast
13
Ndola and Chingola, 2020
Fifteen young people trained to have the conversation with each other
Young people in Zambian congregations
Fifteen young people were trained as peer-to-peer facilitators, and went on to run Community Learning with other young people at Faith Wins in Ndola and St John’s in Buchi.
During the 16 Days of Activism that year, a youth drama was performed at five congregations across Ndola and Chingola. Young people were also asked what the toolkit’s new youth and parenting modules should contain, rather than handed them.
Youth peer facilitators
15
Congregations reached
5

Who the work reached

The people behind the figures

Each figure counts the group it sits under. The groups overlap, so they are shown separately rather than added together.

2018–2020Zambia · Malawi · Zimbabwe · Botswana
Faith leaders trained as facilitators
Three groups were trained to lead Community Learning in their own churches and communities.
Trained with Episcopal Relief & Development
Groups trained, 2018–2020
3
At the Regional Facilitators Training, March 2020
50
2019–2020Zambia · Malawi
Women in church guilds
Facilitators took Community Learning to the women’s groupings already meeting in their churches.
Anglican Mothers’ Union · St Veronica guild · UCZ Mwaiseni
Anglican dioceses reached in Malawi
4
2020Zambia
Young people
Youth were trained to run Community Learning with their own peers, and were asked what the toolkit’s new youth and parenting modules should contain.
Faith Wins, Ndola · St John’s, Buchi
Youth peer-to-peer facilitators trained
15
Congregations reached by the youth drama
5
2018–2019Zambia
Clergy and bishops
Clergy and bishops were engaged through retreats to raise awareness, and out of the need to make the church a safe space.
Anglican Church, Northern Diocese
Clergy and bishops retreats
2
2020Zambia
Whole congregations
A family week, a vigil for family members who had been victims of violence, and “Equality Sunday” brought the work to congregations rather than to a group within them.
St Michael’s Anglican Cathedral, Ndola
Congregations observing 16 Days of Activism
5
2020Zambia
Radio listeners and television audiences
When Covid-19 stopped people gathering, the toolkit’s themes were rebuilt for broadcast so the conversations could continue.
Radio Chengelo · National television
Community conversations broadcast
13
December 2019Zambia · Malawi · Zimbabwe · Botswana · Burundi
The regional gathering
Participants met under the theme “Promoting Women, Families and Churches as Safe Space in the Mitigation of VAWC”, and elected coordinators for their own countries.
Participants, December 2019
68