Johannesburg, 27 April 2023: Grantees of the Voice & Choice Southern Africa Fund – Gender Links ended an intensive six day online training course with dazzling presentations on campaigns across Southern Africa designed to give #VoiceandChoice to women and youth.
Eight organisations walked away with the top prize – attending the Women Deliver Conference in Kigali, Rwanda on 17- 20 July 2023. These organisations demonstrated a strong campaign in the theme category of Gender Based Violence, HIV and AIDS.
The winning organisations comprised, one organisation from Lesotho, Lesotho YCWA; three organisations from Zimbabwe, Unlimited Hope Alliance Trust, Roots Africa and the Matabeleland Aids Council; as well as four organisations from South Africa, Incema, Phola, Life Savers Foundation, and Kwanele -Bringing Justice to Women.
The organisations competed for this prize against 30 organisations in seven Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) theme categories during the VCSAF communications training, facilitated by Flow communications. The menstrual health team came second and the Sex Work team third.
Other themes included LGBTQIA+, Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRHR): Comprehensive Sexual Education (CSE), ASRHR: Advocacy and Safe abortion.
The awards were preceded by a five day, two-and- a -half hour a day online communications training from 17 to 25 April 2023. The training focused on use of social media to amplify key messages on SRHR campaigns in Southern Africa; foster learning, sharing and collaboration among grantees through applied learning linked to key upcoming campaigns and dates; and gathering evidence for the forthcoming SADCProtocol@Work Summit in the last quarter of 2023.
The training explored the do’s and don’ts of facebook; twitter; Instagram; Linked In and Tik Tok. For each platform, grantees explored analytics and fund raising capabilities. Kwanele-Bringing justice to women, New Heritage Foundation and She-Hive Lesotho shared case studies of how they are using social media platforms. All presentations, case studies and video recordings can be accessed on the communications help desk.
Grantees had to apply the learning to developing campaigns across the eight SADC countries where they are located – DRC, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
Judges commended the visually stunning presentations; use of the multiple social media tools; colour coding; other technologies like Monday.com; positive messages like “I am the future!”; clear messages like MyBodyMyBusiness and “Unmute”; reaching out to deep rural areas on touchy subjects like LGBTIQA; use of key dates across the year; learning across organisations and countries; bringing in men (GBV and menstrual health); good use of first hand accounts and media monitoring (sex work).
All organisations will have the opportunity to present the results of their campaigns at the #VoiceandChoice SADC Protocol@Work summit during the Sixteen Days of Activism 2024.
To keep informed on the Voice and Choice Southern Africa Fund, follow on twitter on @VCSAFund or like the Instagram page @VCSAFund. The Fund is a partnership with Amplify Change, a UK-based global fund to break the silence on SRHR.
For more information or contact details of the grantees contact the grants coordinator, Nomthandazo Mankazana on grants1@genderlinks.org.za / 082 560 0066 OR visit the funds website page
By Nomthandazo Mankazana Mokoa, Grants Co-coordinator, Grant Making Unit