Adoye

I am Jalane a young female Ethiopian who have high motivation for leadership with successful educational achievement and professional experience. I have finished master in social work and Bachler degree in sociology, and social anthropology. I have a total of seven years’ experience of work world. Right now am working as an institutional capacity building and social accountability advisor for CARE Ethiopia: a program funded by USAID known as “Strengthening PSNP4 Institutions and Resilience (SPIR)”. In this program my role is providing technical support to improve the implementation capacity of government partners. Previously, I have also worked for UN-Women funded organization known as Association for Women’s Sanctuary and Development (AWSAD). In a capacity of program coordinator and contributed for the social and economic development of women and girls survivors of GBV in Ethiopia. Additionally, I have also worked in labor and social affair office as expert of gender equality. 

Violence against women and girls is a fundamental violation of human rights, and its scale is staggering. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that one in three women will directly experience either or both of two forms of VAWG: intimate partner violence, or sexual violence from a non-partner,  The WHO Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence against Women found that sexual violence was more frequent than physical violence, with the lifetime prevalence of women in the study who had experienced sexual violence by an intimate partner at 59%.  currently gender based violence is dramatically increasing in Ethiopia due to the contributing factor of lock-down as COVID-19 pandemic emerged. Adoye will closely work with Ethiopian government and support its effort in elimination of gender based violence through it direct engagement in provision of temporary shelter with comprehensive services and establishment of one-stop center and community awareness.  

Violence against women and girls is highly prevalent in Ethiopia, and sexual violence may be more frequent than physical violence.  In the 2016 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey, nearly a quarter (23%) of all Ethiopian women aged 15-49 reported having survived physical violence at some point in their lives, and 10 per cent reported experiencing sexual violence. More than a third (34%) of ever married women reported that they were victims of physical, sexual, or emotional violence by their spouses, and nearly a quarter (22%) sustained injuries as a result of the violence. The vast majority of women who reported experiencing violence, including 79% of the sexual violence survivors, never told anyone or sought help.  Among the women who experienced sexual and physical violence and did seek help, most went to a neighbor or family - but only 4% sought help from the police, fewer than 3% sought medical help, and just 1% sought psychological or social support.  In our culture, telling is difficult and most cases are not reported. Many forms of VAWG are widely tolerated or not recognized as violence.  Some forms of VAWG are expressly allowed, or not explicitly prohibited by law.  

In Ethiopia government operated One-Stop Center, intended to coordinate comprehensive legal, medical and psycho-social counselling services to survivors, had been planned (as part of the government Growth and Transformation Plan II) and partially implemented, but has not been realized.  Various stakeholders from local level Women’s Affairs offices and Police indicated that women report violence at both agencies, and less often to health providers. In this regard, Adoye will establish and strengthen one-stop center where gender based violence survivors can get all services in one.and will also establish temporary shelter that provide food, close, medical, psycho-social, legal follow-up, counseling therapy, education/vocational training, and livelihood enhancement services to protect survivors from perpetrators. In addition to this, Adoye will also closely work with partners to facilitate referral and linkages of survivors to available services to insure  effective case handling and management. Gender based violence is  violation of human right which ranges from complicated health problem of survivors to loss of human life and Couse for conflict between family, neighbors  and  community members. Moreover, the project will closely work with community get keepers including religious leaders, community based institutions, civil society organizations, and local administrators as well as local Medias to increase community awareness. 

Women, girls and children survivors of physical, sexual and psychological violence’s, in Adoye operational woredas and kebeles are the prior clients who will directly benefited from the project. On the other hand, community members including family and relatives as well as marginalized/dis-advantaged and vulnerable groups of the community members (peoples with dis-ability, ultra-poor, minority groups and members of female headed households) are also benefited from the project. Adoye will conduct a need assessment to systematically identify and prioritize the need of program participant during the entrance to the temporary shelter and at one-stop center. Proper documentation and record kipping of survivor’s history and other relevant documents will be conducted on database to insure effective data management and monitoring. In addition, the project will also identify locally available services and closely work with service providers such as health facilities, legal body (court, police, and free legal aids) and technical and vocational training centers to facilitate linkages with the services in order to meet the priority needs of its program participants. Moreover, the project will also engage and link to other governmental, non-governmental and private (financial institutions, different factories) to facilitate the holistic empowerment of the survivors of violence in Adoye woredas.   

Gender based violence is a very pressing problem that is challenging every nation all over the world. In a country like Ethiopia were people are suffering from extreme poverty ; women and children are the most exposed and vulnerable group of the community. Due to this and other contributing factors, the rate of gender based violence is dreamily increasing. Thus, in order to minimize the multiple suffering of women and children in Ethiopia, particularly in Modjo woreda, Adoye will is designed as a project. Though idea of working on gender based violence is in my mind since my childhood, I purposely attend sociology and social work education to achieve my goal. Moreover, I intentionally searched organization were I can contribute to gender equity and equality. accordingly, I get the chance in government labor and social affair office were I worked as expert of gender equality. I was working with labor associations/ union in different factory including flower farms were women and young girls are exposed to poor protections and at particular risk of violence. It is that time when the idea of working on GBV fully control my attention to address its multiplying impact on the well-being of the women.

The issue of violation of human right especially gender based violence is aching my heart since my childhood. I was grow-up and educated in small town were gender based violence including abduction, rape, child mirage and sexual assault is considered as a normal part of life and were the victim/survivors is ashamed of their life and discriminated by the community while the perpetrators of violence walk without problem. While I was in primary school, a lots female student’s dropout from school due to the above mentioned problems which puts tiers every day on my face. My desire and passion to fight against gender based violence started back then and I was always waiting for such kind of opportunity to bring my dream came true. In Ethiopia women who makes half of the population of the country still not treated equally and  safer from gender based violence’s. In this regard, I have a great passion and dream to work on the issue of gender based violence and to be gender activist in Ethiopia to  become the “voice of the voice less” and stand on behalf of those do not get the chance to fight for there right. 

I am hardworking and energetic young development worker who have a great passion for becoming a young leader for change in Ethiopia as well as Africa. I have finished master in social work and Bachler degree in sociology, and social anthropology. I do have successful educational achievement and professional experience with personal qualities of leadership skills. When I was in college, I have a lots of experience in facilitating training, group coaching and mentoring while I volunteered in different community initiatives, local organizations (family guidance association and health communication partnership). I have proven individual and interpersonal skills like ability of working with team of people from diversified groups (different ethnic group, religious affiliation, educational back ground), easily adaptive to a new cultural setting and environment. I believe my leadership skills in combination with adequate educational background and concrete working experience in the area of gender based violence and different organizational set-up (from public to international organization) would make me a suitable person. Current I am engaged in COVID-19 response program at CARE Ethiopia SPIR/DFSA project work on community awareness elevation, support health institutions and facilities as well as addressing gender based violence cases happening due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Working on the issue of abused women and girls and children is a frustrating job which need a big passion and commitment. In a developing countries like Ethiopia where there is a lots of challenges and obstacles such as lack of adequate resource, lack of free and fair legal system, access to basic services and lack of awareness in the community about the negative consequence of gender based violence; there is a need to deal with it and face regardless of the extent of the challenge you are facing from simple to complex and difficult one including conflict in community/ ethnic groups. According to my observation, different government and non-government organizations who are working on gender based violence focus only on the survivors without engaging the community members who are knows Couse as the same time who will be give solution for the problem. unlike other, Adoye will closely work with community members, community get keepers and local administrators  officials and other development partners who has proven expertise and experience on the area of gender based violence as well as media to insure the systematically address of GBV cases and creation of violence free nation in all its operational areas. 

I have demonstrated exemplary leadership skill by handling the problems of  sexually abused  women, girls, and children in Ethiopia. One unforgettable case is always in my mind irrespective of place and time. the case of eleventh grade female student whose problems range from simple sexual assault to a rape case with physical injury (beheaded neck), the perpetuate of the violence has tried a lot to drop the case by giving money to the people engaged in the legal system as well as staff of the safe house and searched for to kill. In a close consultation with respective governmental institutions specially police we facilitated special security, facilitated her medical follow-in the shelter close consultation with relevant government officials and my co-workers. Currently she is reintegrated to her family after her medical and legal follow-up in completed and the perpetrator is punished for the act of violence and sent to jail. I have demonstrated proven individual and interpersonal skills in coordinating different actors to complete the process. I believe the issue I picked to design this project and my leadership skills in combination with adequate educational background would make me a suitable person to win this elevate prize by MIT.

Adoye will have its own platform were it can engage and participate community members. It also work to establish and strengthen one-stop service center were the survivors of violence can get a holistic service and all stockholders can contributes their part as well as facilitate easy referral and linkages. Additionally, temporary shelter will also prepared which contains services such as food, close, medical and etc. Adoye will prepare a need based business plan development for the survivors who wants to engage in different business activity. Facilitating finance service provision to create the access to finance for the developed business plan.