- UGANDA MEDIA WOMEN's ASSOCIATION & MAMA FM -

On the 1st of November 2010 Uganda Media Women’s Association (UMWA), in cooperation with Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET), initiated a new project using ICT to fight gender based violence. The goal of the project is to create ICT centers with women counselors whose task is to listen to women, counsel, and collaborate with other stakeholders concerned with the phenomenon of violence in order to help establish an environment free from the acts and fears of gender based violence.

How the project will be carried out

The project will be carried out in semi urban areas of Kampala Kawempe Division in three parishes of Kisaasi/Komamboga, Kikaaya, and Kyebando. These parishes are part of our operation area in the ongoing project on prevention of domestic violence which was implemented in 2009. These places are also believed to have the highest number of victims of violence. UMWA has put in place one telephone set in each of these parishes with operators to help victims who cannot access telephone sets to call on the toll free line, counsel them and solve their domestic violence issues by themselves. When this fails they forward the cases to UMWA and UMWA connects them to relevant organizations. The toll free line and message line will be used by people to call and report cases of domestic violence from these particular parishes. They will be listened to, counselled and taken to relevant authorities where necessary. The lines will remain open at all times and the information will remain confidential. Where necessary the messages will be read out in radio programs. UMWA will also create a talk show program that will run on the radio once in a week with a theme of preventing Gender Based Violence. Local leaders, police, women from different organizations and victims of violence will be hosted on the programs to provide live testimonies, and address people on the causes, effects and prevention of Gender Based Violence.

Who will benefit from the project?

The primary beneficiaries of the project are the women and young girls who in the mentioned parishes of Kawempe division in Kampala. In addition Mama FM’s listeners will also benefit from this project as they will be given the chance to listen to programs where victims of violence, local leaders, police and women from different organizations enlighten people on the causes, effects and prevention of Gender Based Violence.
The project will be implemented in a period of 6 months from November 2010 to April 2011.