Projects

Workshops: Violence Stops with Me

Engender's one-day workshop for service providers and community leaders provides both the understanding of violence and victimhood, and practical tools and perspective that can help individuals break the pattern of violence and/or victimhood in their own lives. It has been deliberately designed to achieve the maximum impact in the minimum amount of time to benefit those who are working with limited time and resources. Read More.

Workshops: Intersections of Gender, Violence, HIV & Poverty

Engender has worked on the intersections of gender, gender violence, HIV/AIDs & poverty since 2001 (see publication). We provide various workshops, ranging from one-day to three days, including strategic planning and mainstreaming, for various levels of government, NGOs, donors, and various other service providers.

The goal of these workshops is to introduce participants from one particular sector, e.g. HIV/AIDS or gender or poverty, to the intersections between all these disciplines, and how these issues intersect, as well as integrate the intersections into strategic interventions.

Workshops have been facilitated for various participants including the following:

1. Oxfam Canada: South Africa (Read more on Agenda's website. View workshop pictures.)
2. Pan-Asian workshop (co-facilitation), convened by Harvard University’s School of Public Health, in Bangkok
3. University of Cape Town: School of Actuarial Sciences
4. Democratic Nurses of South Africa (DENOSA)

Photographer: Biljana Rakocevic,
Women in Black.

Workshops: Take Back our Bodies for our Own Pleasure

Due to demand, Engender has added an additional/optional one day workshop to help participants internalise and build on the experiences from the Violence Stops with Me workshops. These participatory workshops are for urban and rural service providers and community leaders where they can safely and openly discuss their bodies, especially their genitals, menstruation and sexual pleasure.

The goal of these workshops is to empower women to appreciate themselves, their bodies and bodily functions. The workshops include creative visual mapping exercises and participants develop an understanding of their bodies beyond religion. Only when we begin to respect and appreciate ourselves, can we begin to boundary violence and demand respect and dignity in our private and public lives.

Reclaiming Indigenous Women’s Power in Southern Africa: the KhoeSan

In Southern Africa the KhoeSan face enormous health and social challenges, including excessively high rates of gender violence. Decision making and leadership structures are often male dominated and have failed to contribute to development in general, and to improve the structural conditions of children and women specifically.

Working in close consultation with local KhoeSan communities, this initiative embarks on strategic interventions to develop female participation and leadership through capacity building and empowerment which is built on indigenous knowledge systems. This project also documents the contribution of women to the collective narrative history of the KhoeSan to effect meaningful policy and structural changes. Read more.