Graceland Project

Project: Increased protection, empowerment and support to women survivors of violence

Location: Sierra Leone, Western rural, Moyamba, Bonthe and Kono districts.

Duration: 2011 –2014

Partner: Graceland Counselling Services (GLCS)

Freetown's Lumley Beach

The situation

During the 11 year civil war a quarter of a million women were raped. They were made sex slaves, gang raped and subjected to extremely high levels of violence. Despite the war ending in 2002, women in Sierra Leone continue to suffer violence at the hands of their perpetrators. In fact rape and domestic violence have become more of a problem in the post-conflict democratic society than before the war. The conflict and continuing violence against women (VAW) has also led to a sharp rise in women contracting STIs such as HIV.

Vulnerable and marginalised women have few opportunities to access appropriate support and justice services, limiting their ability to recover from the trauma of the violence they have survived. Without addressing the psychosocial needs of women, women’s capacity to improve their life chances for themselves and their families is limited.

A number of conventions and Acts promoting and securing women’s rights have been ratified but their implementation has been limited. Furthermore the existence of customary laws and harmful traditional practices pose a big challenge in the fight to protect the rights of women and their participation in the country

What Womankind is doing

Womankind is supporting its partner Graceland Counselling Services to eliminate violence and promote emotional stability to survivors of VAW. We will be directly supporting women to be active participants in calling for the realisation of their rights and gender equality, through counselling and access to medical support services. It will also address the discrimination and culture of impunity that exists by increasing public awareness of women’s needs, and improving policies and practices provided by public officials and service providers towards addressing the rights of women survivors of violence.

With our partner we are:

• Providing counselling and direct support to 1,840 vulnerable women through individual, group, family or marital counselling and advocacy programmes
• Raising awareness on gender based violence, women’s human rights and HIV and AIDS with rallies and radio discussion programmes organised in eight communities per four districts
• Training 20 volunteer psychosocial care givers in counselling techniques, human rights issues and sensitisation messages
• Providing confidential counselling and testing for HIV and AIDS
• Indirectly benefiting 8,960 family members of women survivors, 40,000 women and girls in the community, 80 traditional leaders, 60 advocacy groups and 40 state authorities

What we have achieved so far

The project started in April 2011 and to date has been busy getting established and securing the community’s support for the work.

We will update this section with achievements as the project progresses.