Gender Equality Haiti Project #32096

Free, Educate, and Empower Girls in Haiti

by Beyond Borders

Project Report | Feb 27, 2024
Your Generosity Supports a Growing and Energetic Haitian Women's Movement

By Brian Stevens | Engagement Director

Raising awareness with a march against VAWG.

Your Generosity Supports a Growing and Energetic Haitian Women's Movement

Thank you for your generous support for Beyond Borders ‘Free, Educate, and Empower Girls in Haiti’ project on GlobalGiving.

Your generosity is supporting an energetic and growing movement of people committed to addressing the root cause of violence against women and girls: the imbalance in power between women and men and girls and boys.

The Impact of Your Generosity in More Than 100 Haitian Communities

We see the impact of your generosity with every new community, school, church, and girls' club organized and trained to prevent violence against women and girls and balance power with men and boys.

Thanks to you and people like you who care, Beyond Borders' Rethinking Power program has equipped groups like these in more than 100 communities throughout Haiti with the tools they need to prevent different types of violence against women and girls: physical, verbal, psychological, sexual, and economic.

Their Determination + Your Generosity = A Powerful Haitian-Led Movement

The determination of these trained local activists and the generosity of people like you is building a powerful movement to prevent violence and balance power so that families and communities can thrive.

Thank you again for your solidarity, your care, and your concern. More communities are committed to preventing violence and balancing power between women and men and girls and boys because of you.

16 Days of Activism to Prevent Gender-Based Violence

The annual 16 Days of Activism is a time when activists in Haiti and around the world mobilize, beginning on November 25th – the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women – through December 10th – Human Rights Day.

The Rethinking Power team and community activists in the southeast organized a series of events that complemented a country-wide campaign supported by the Delegation of the European Union in Haiti.

Together with local elected officials, the Rethinking Power team led community discussions about how to prevent VAWG. A peaceful march was held on December 5th in which hundreds of men, women, and children took to the streets to demand an end to violence against women and girls.

Additionally, representatives from 10 Haitian women’s rights organizations came together in a virtual round table to share about their work to end VAWG. We are encouraged to see that now in Haiti violence prevention has become just as important as advocacy work for survivors.

Thank you for your generous support for this kind of movement-building work!

Convening Movement Leaders to Strategize for 2024

This past December, thanks to the generosity of people like you and the European Union, Beyond Borders brought together leaders from more than 10 Haitian women's rights organizations to strategize about advocacy and violence-prevention plans in 2024.

These grassroots leaders are holding planning meetings and developing action plans for a series of community-wide violence-prevention activities to build momentum and support.

As momentum is key in norm-change and movement-building – especially in the early stages – the kind of grassroots leadership these activists are showing is critical.

Thanks to you – and continued support from the European Union – Beyond Borders’ Rethinking Power team is keeping in close touch with these activists to ensure their continued success.

They join grassroots leaders in other communities across Haiti who are organizing to prevent violence against women and girls -- using an approach proven to cut intimate partner violence by more than half, community-wide.

By The Numbers: The Latest Movement Building Work You Make Possible

In the last quarter, your support has made it possible to complete initiatives like these:

400 people participated in one-to-one chats with activist staff during an awareness-raising campaign to prevent violence
24 religious leaders were trained in leadership skills aimed at promoting and facilitating the leadership of women in churches
38 school teachers and staff were trained on how to integrate Power to Girls into their curriculum
150 Girls Group meetings were organized with 400 girls between the ages of 10 and 19
15 participants from 11 women’s organizations participated in a three-day workshop on best practices for violence prevention and organizational management
3-day technical support visits were conducted with three partner organizations located in three geographic departments

Your generosity, your solidarity, your care, and your concern makes you part of the movement to prevent violence against women and girls and balance power between women and men too. Thank you for your faithful support!

What People Are Saying About The Impact of This Work

One of the best ways to convey the impact of the work to prevent violence against women and girls that you are making possible is by sharing with you what community members themselves are saying.

“My husband used to be very violent with me. Now, thanks to the person I have become, I don’t let my husband do whatever he wants to me anymore.” ~ Allah, program participant

“If it was not for the SASA! methodology* that [we] are now using, this organization would have fallen apart. Before, I sidelined men in our work to prevent violence against women and girls. Thanks to this methodology, we are working together with men.” ~ a member of the partner organization AFASDA in Cap Haitian

“I was not a tolerant guy. The Rethinking Power team taught me that women have the same rights as men. I can say now that I will never beat another woman until the day I die.” ~ Renold, Community Activist in the community of Labreziliyèn

“I would like to congratulate the team doing this great work in the community. Since the program began here there have been fewer women and girls subjected to violence. I decided to join this work too. Thank you for this beautiful work that you are doing in our community.” ~ A journalist the community of Tibi

*Created by our friends at Raising Voices, SASA! (Start, Awareness, Support, Action) is a ground-breaking, internationally-recognized model of community-mobilization to stop violence against women and the spread of HIV. Engaging all actors in the community — women, men, cultural and religious leaders, local officials, police, health-care providers — SASA! fosters critical reflection on gender and power and instigates local-level activism.

Thank You Again

Thank you again for all that you are making possible through your generous support for Beyond Borders' Free, Educate, and Empower Girls in Haiti project on GlobalGiving. We are deeply grateful for your solidarity in these challenging times.

You are building the movement to prevent violence against women and girls and ensure that every day more girls and women in Haiti are living free from violence, discrimination, and inequality. If you have any questions about what you read in this report, please contact Brian Stevens, Beyond Borders’ Engagement Director, at (305) 450-2561 or b.stevens@beyondborders.net.

A community activist training in southeast Haiti.

Trained local activists become movement-builders.

Girls Club mentors at a leadership training.

Their dedication+your generosity = lasting change.

Trainers ask: how are you using your power?

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Nov 1, 2023
You Empower Community Activists to Take Leadership Roles in Preventing Violence.

By Brian Stevens | Engagement Director

Community activists organize a march to end VAWG.

Your Support Empowers Community Activists to Take Leadership Roles in Preventing Violence

Your generous support for Beyond Borders’ Free, Educate, and Empower Girls in Haiti project is building a movement of women and men and girls and boys who are organizing their communities to prevent violence against women and girls. Thank you for your generosity and solidarity!

Thanks to the expertise of Beyond Borders’ Rethinking Power team and the generous support of people like you, community activists trained and supported by our team are now taking the lead in organizing their families, friends, neighbors and community leaders to prevent violence against women and girls.

Your Generosity is Supporting a Shift to Community-Led Activism and Movement Building

This shift from Rethinking Power-led to community-led activism is at the heart of movement building and allows Beyond Borders’ staff to shift to a more supportive role.

As the critical mass of activists in the movement to prevent violence against women and girls grows in size, capacity and leadership, Beyond Borders staff support their efforts with practice sessions on methodologies and monthly meetings of local groups in the network, to provide them with guidance and support.

Independent, Community-Led Initiative to Launch New Girls’ Group

Modeling the creation of Girls’ Groups by Beyond Borders’ Rethinking Power team, the Lavale Advocacy Committee started a new girls’ group with girls who had not taken part in previously created groups. The Rethinking Power team provided support in the form of training materials from Power to Girls*, as well as additional start-up training and advice.

Your generosity and solidarity supports this kind of movement-building work that shifts power and leadership to local grassroots community members and ensures a more sustainable movement to prevent violence against women and girls. Thank you for making this kind of work possible!

*Created by Beyond Borders’ Rethinking Power Team, Power To Girls includes a complete, three-year methodology to integrate lessons on equality and preventing gender-based violence into the school curriculum, including sample lesson plans for social science, biology and language teachers. Power To Girls also includes a guide to help schools and communities create and support local girls’ groups, and a set of community organizing tools designed to create deep and lasting change among adults too.

Building a Violence Prevention Network Through the Women Deliver Conference

Originally, Beyond Borders’ Rethinking Power team planned to send a staff member and Haitian youth-activist to Rwanda in July 2023 to participate in the Women Deliver conference. Beyond Borders was also invited to present its work in a virtual panel with a partner in Kenya.

Sadly, multiple attempts to secure travel visas were not successful. The team then pivoted to host a mini–Women Deliver conference in Jacmel. For four days, 16 participants from 12 community-based organizations participated in the global conference.

Creating a Space for Advocacy and Influence Around the Rights of Women and Girls

These local participants also advanced the goal to create a space for advocacy and influence around the rights of women and girls in southeastern Haiti.

The conference sessions explored topics like strengthening collective action in the global women’s movement; creating intergenerational spaces for dialogue locally and globally; encouraging public and private investment in feminist movements; and finding concrete results to change conditions for all types and ages of women and girls.

The group also reflected on and identified the issues and challenges of the southeastern Haiti women's movement and began defining collective actions to overcome challenges by creating a network.

Learning About Global Successes Fosters Connectedness, Solidarity, and Confidence

The conference provided Haitian activists with a glimpse into the realities of women and girls living in other countries, fostering connectedness, solidarity, and confidence in learning about the success of others.

Beyond Borders’ panel also allowed for greater visibility of advancements made in Haiti by presenting the impact of Rethinking Power’s successful prevention work in Haiti to a large global community.

In addition, in the afternoons when the conference was over, the Rethinking Power team offered training sessions for the 16 local participants on advocacy, leadership, and organizational strengthening. The group has since met regularly and has an active WhatsApp group, with further engagements planned through the end of the year. Their goal is to build a collective agenda for violence prevention and movement building.

Your generosity and support makes work like this possible. Thank you!

By The Numbers: The Latest Movement Building Work You Make Possible

In the last quarter, your support has made it possible to complete initiatives like these:

433 girls participated in skills training on requested topics such as fruit transformation, macramé, and crochet
135 girls age 15-19 participated in sessions on the Girls’ Economic Power Resource Pack including doing market research to assess their business ideas
92 families visited by Girls’ Group mentors to discuss how to balance power between girls and boys in the home and the importance of participation in girls’ groups
335 community members participated in one of 19 community meetings on the importance of girls’ groups
600 community members reached via door-to-door campaigns
120 community members attended theater-style dramas
26 couples participated in one-day training on positive partnerships, on how to balance power together and support other couples
46 religious leaders participated in workshops to support reflection on women’s leadership and violence prevention in their congregations
140 community activists and leaders participated in training to learn ways to foster girls’ economic power
41 school personnel from a new partner school participated in three days of training each on basic concepts in Power to Girls
117 school personnel in three schools trained on how to balance power between girls and boys, and prevent violence against girls in school
13 organizations participated in a three-day short-course on preventing violence against women and girls with disabilities

What People Are Saying About The Impact of This Work

One of the best ways to convey the impact of the work to prevent violence against women and girls that you are making possible is by sharing with you what community members themselves are saying.

“We see that the work Rethinking Power is doing should have been done a long time ago because of the way the community has welcomed the work. When we consider the testimonies that we are hearing, the work is really successful. The experiences we have had with team members in the program office gives us still more confidence to do our work as activists . . .”

~ Female Intern and Community Activist

“I lived with a lot of discrimination in my area, and I felt excluded because of my body, my size, and I used to cry a lot. But now I have gotten over those challenges because of all the training I have received. I can deflect all the bad things people think about me.”

~ Female community member

Thank You Again

A community event in support of maternity care.

A Girls' Club meeting in southeastern Haiti.

A meeting on preventing VAWG and balancing power.

A community observes International Women's Day.

Local theatre troupe play on preventing VAWG.

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Jul 3, 2023
Power to Girls Gains Momentum in Schools. You Make it Possible!

By Brian Stevens | Engagement Director

A student whose school is using 'Power To Girls'.

Power to Girls Initiative Gaining Momentum in Schools, Communities

Thank you for your generous support for Beyond Borders’ Free, Educate, and Empower Girls in Haiti project on GlobalGiving. We are grateful for your solidarity and generosity!

Thanks to you and people like you, Beyond Borders’ Power To Girls initiative is gaining momentum in schools and communities, equipping students, faculty, staff, and community members with the skills and resources to balance power between girls and boys.

Created by Beyond Borders’ Rethinking Power Team, Power To Girls includes a complete, three-year methodology to integrate lessons on equality and preventing gender-based violence into the school curriculum, including sample lesson plans for social science, biology and language teachers.

Power To Girls also includes a guide to help schools and communities create and support local girls’ groups, and a set of community organizing tools designed to create deep and lasting change among adults too.

Sixty-Three Teachers in Southeast Haiti Trained in Power To Girls

Thanks to you, 63 secondary school teachers from three schools in southeast Haiti were trained during different multi-day workshops on various aspects of Power To Girls, including how to integrate lessons on equality and preventing gender-based violence into French, Biology and Social Science classes.

Additionally, 39 students (19 girls) participated in discussions related to Power To Girls sessions for their classrooms to foster greater understanding and dialogue.

Grassroots Community Leaders and Partner Organizations Trained in Power To Girls

Your support has also made it possible to train grassroots community leaders and members of partner organizations in various phases of Power To Girls. Here’s a look at some of the Power To Girls trainings that your support made possible this past quarter:

101 community activists and leaders trained during a five-day training
37 people participated in a three day training to create theater groups to perform skits on Power To Girls
22 members of partner organizations participated in Power to Girls Action Phase and training
24 Haiti VAWG Prevention Coalition members from six organizations trained in Phase 4 (Action Phase) of Power To Girls
Three exchange visits conducted between Power To Girls partners

Thanks to your generosity and solidarity, Power To Girls is gaining momentum in Haiti and building a movement of people committed to balancing power and preventing violence.

Investing in Infrastructure: New Tools and Resources to Build the Movement to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls

Your generous support is supporting the creation of an infrastructure of tools and resources that grassroots community leaders and partner organizations can use to build the movement to prevent gender-based violence.

This quarter, your support has made it possible to adapt SASA! Together* and the revised Power To Girls through Phase 3 (Support), with some additional testing and finalization scheduled. Additionally, the Girls’ Economic Power Resource Pack is largely complete through Phase 2.

*SASA! Together is the Haiti adaptation of Raising Voices’ updated version of SASA! and includes the key elements of SASA! Faith; and the development of a new resource pack for the economic empowerment of adolescent girls, to be integrated within the Power To Girls methodology. In addition, we went beyond these three to develop Safe and Capable - a resource pack on VAWG with disabilities.

By The Numbers: The Latest Movement Building Work You Make Possible

In the last quarter, your support has made it possible to complete initiatives like these:

371 girls age 10-19 actively participate weekly in 16 Girls’ Groups.
15 Girls’ Group mentors trained during a two-day workshop on facilitating new sessions on economic power. The sessions teach girls how to become economically independent.
28 community meetings and 18 days of community awareness raising on girls’ power, power imbalances, and types of violence – all meant to encourage parental and community support of girls.
78 girls and parents participated in group feedback sessions where girls who are members of Girls’ Groups presented what they are learning, and where all share how this impacts them and their families.
252 girls from Girls’ Advocacy Committees in Lavale and new girls’ groups in Lamontagne and Bainet participated in nine exchange opportunities to talk about their experiences so that new Youth Activists could inspire girls in new communities.
101 community activists and leaders trained on Phase 2 (Awareness) of SASA! Together during a five- day training workshop.
15 journalists participated in one-day training on the concepts of power and how to better address cases where women and girls experience violence.
37 people participated in a three day training to create theater groups to perform different skits on SASA! Together.
20 church leaders participated in a one-day training to discuss the advantages of balancing power between women and men at all levels in a church.
17 women trained in leadership development.
51 members of organizations responding to VAWG in Lamontagne and Bainet participated in a one-day training to learn more about prevention and response concepts and were also connected formally to the community activist network.
22 members of partner organizations participated in SASA! Action Phase training, as well as a two-day training on advocacy and ideas for supporting the strengthening of the movement during and after programming ends.
24 Haiti VAWG Prevention Coalition members from six organizations trained in advocacy skills and what happens during and after Phase 4 (Action) in SASA!.
15 women from 16 organizations participated in a short course on preventing violence against girls and girls' autonomy.

What People Are Saying About The Impact of This Work

One of the best ways to convey the impact of the work to prevent violence against women and girls that you are making possible is by sharing with you what community members themselves are saying.

“Do you know Power to Girls has done a lot for me? I had always said that, when I finished school, I would get married in order to have a man to take care of me - to give me money and to manage everything for me. It has been during my training in Power to Girls that I have discovered my abilities and my capacity – I started thinking differently. Because it is true that I need money to meet my needs but I notice it is best when both people in a couple work together to take care of the house and home. In such a situation, it would be difficult for the man not to respect the woman." ~ Girls Club Mentor

“Only now do I understand the importance activism has had. Now we ourselves are discovering the problems and priorities the communities have and are defining advocacy objectives; therefore, the activists will be happy to organize and advocate.” ~ Partner staff of IDEH, using SASA! in Haiti VAWG Prevention Coalition

“I am grateful to Rethinking Power [Program] for the person it has helped me become; compared to who I was before, I have become a new person.” ~ Community member

“When I received an invitation letter to the training, I thought, ‘What power do they think they are increasing?’ It is only now that I know that the power they are talking about is positive power.” ~ Community member

Thank You Again

Thank you again for all that you are making possible through your generous support for Beyond Borders' Free, Educate, and Empower Girls in Haiti project on GlobalGiving. We are deeply grateful for your solidarity in these challenging times.

A 'Power To Girls' poster in use in a classroom.

A teacher works on lesson plans that include PTG.

Teachers being trained on 'Power To Girls'.

The introductory guide for 'Power To Girls'.

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