UN Women Workshop to Deepen Practices to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls Held in Nadi, Fiji

A workshop to deepen practices to prevent violence against women and girls, funded by the UN Women Pacific Regional Ending Violence against Women Facility Fund, has been conducted in Nadi, Fiji from 5-7 December.

The event brought together more than 20 people from five different countries in the Pacific, representing both civil society organizations and government departments.

Workshop participants are from Pacific organizations that have been awarded grants from the Pacific Regional Ending Violence against Women Facility Fund.

Melissa Alvarado, UN Women’s Ending Violence against Women Programme Specialist said, “Prevention of violence against women is receiving increased attention because we are learning more about what works and what is promising to actually turn around the problem. Data from studies on violence against women in the Pacific has taught us that it is very important to work with children and young people, parents, leaders and whole communities to stop this problem and its lasting consequences. We know that it is extremely important to work together on this very complex issue- no one group or agency can solve this problem alone. This workshop aims to build on the momentum that already exists in the Pacific to transform violence against women and refine approaches.

The main aim of the UN Women Pacific Regional Ending Violence against Women Fund is to strengthen organizations and networks to end violence against women and girls. With this workshop, we are supporting organizations to strengthen capacities in working with adolescents, youth, women and men to develop prevention strategies to stop violence from happening in the first place. Our aim is also to strengthen capacity on monitoring to capture how programmes are influencing change, and identifying lessons learned related to prevention” Melissa concluded.

“This workshop relates very well to the programmes we are implementing in terms of prevention of violence against girls at secondary school level. It will assist us to strengthen our programme as we gather other experiences and insight shared from participants from the Pacific. We have two core activities which are related: the Training of Trainers for Teachers and peer education training for secondary school students. We also conduct training for school management and Parents and Teachers Association. We conduct trainings on substance abuse, prevention of child abuse, elimination of violence against girls in schools and HIV AIDS,” stated Simon Cheer, a Project Officer with the National Substance Abuse Advisory Council, part of the Ministry of Education in Fiji.

The workshop is facilitated by UN Women and Partners for Prevention (P4P), an interagency initiative of UNDP, UNFPA, UN Women and UN Volunteers in Asia and the Pacific based in Bangkok.