Posted in May 2013

Garowe, the capital city of Puntland, Somalia, is one of the JCCP’s project sites. Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) having fled from the drought and the result of conflict are camping in the outskirts. They lead severe lives in the camp because of the lack of water and an unsanitary environment. In addition, Gender Based Violence (GBV) has become a serious and growing problem. Sexual violence against women and children easily happens at the night time because many people live in shabby tents, and domestic violence is increasing due to stress from economic insecurity. Thus life in the camp carries GBV risks. According to reports, most of the GBV vsurvivors are women widely ranged from 3 to 70 years in age. To complicate matters, GBV is not always made public because of the nature of this kind of violence.

JCCP therefore, as reported in February 2013 on our official site, started to distribute Dignity Kits aiming at improving their hygiene and living environment. Furthermore, trainings for the elders of communities and government officials have been conducted. Awareness-raising activities for GBV prevention have also been implemented in collaboration with women living in IDP camps. JCCP believes that both psycho-social support for GBV survivors and awareness among the whole communities including vsirvivor’s family are essential. The awareness-raising has changed the perception of neighbors on GBV and strengthened the social safety-net for GBV survivors.

 The target of these activities has reached 10,800 people since February 2012. Those people include residents of neighboring host communities along with IDPs in the camp. Since those communities also have GBV survivors and perpetrators as with IDP camps, JCCP includes both communities in the awareness-raising initiative.

As a part of daily awareness-raisingactivities, cleaning equipment and T-shirts printed with messages about GBV awareness-raising and hygiene promotion in the Somali language were distributed in February to the Water and Sanitation Committee composed of IDPs in the camps.Concerned about the health of children who play without shoes in the dust scattered IDP camps, the Committee cleaned up there every week as volunteers but they had no equipment.Two messages were written on distributed equipment and T-shirts saying “Respect the Dignity of Women” and “Clean Environment is Important for Healthy Life”. JCCP aims at raising IDP’s awareness of GBV and hygiene promotion.

 We also conducted awareness-raising activities targeting children at two local primary schools in Garowe. Many children from IDP families, refugee families, and vulnerable families of the host communities attend those schools. We distributed 835 sets of notebooks and pens with GBV awareness messages among the children. The note reads “Protect Women and Girls” and the pen reads “Unite for Peace” in the Somali language. Although this may seem to be a tiny effort, the effect on adults in the schools and at home is significant.



 Another effort is made by posting awareness-raising messages simultaneously via Short Message Service (SMS) on mobile phones. Since many IDPs own mobile phones, SMS is an effective tool to appeal to many people of all ages. Four messages were sent in February and March saying “Respecting each other at home is important”, “Brothers also hate what you hate if you were done”, “Stop violence against others”, and “Stop violence against women”. Those messages were composed by participants of the workshop on awareness-raising conducted by JCCP in January 2013. Responses to those awareness-raising messages exceeded our expectations and JCCP staff in Garowe and the trainees received hundreds of inquiries. The IDPs and members of local host communities have requested for similar messages again. Each of the messages consisting of less than ten words is simple, but quite a lot of people understood the concept and importance behind the messages.

JCCP continues to work on awareness-raising through various channels including large-scale campaigns with new technologies as well as daily activities in a locally appropriate manner.