SAAM- Embrace Your Voice – Nepal (NMSS)

Name of the activity: SAAM- Embrace Your Voice

Country/NMO: Nepal (NMSS)

Program: Gender Based Violence

Contact information: [email protected]

Type of the activity: Campaign

General description:

The main idea of the program is to bring together the Health personnel, policymakers, lawyers, police, public health experts, forensic experts and discuss the issues of sexual assault and workplace violence through a Panel Discussion and help the medical students to get a general idea and know where to approach if they or their patients find themselves in similar situation. It is also to help medical students get in touch with their literary sides and spread the message in a creative manner though Poems and Stories.

Focus area:

Sexual Exploitation and Rape

Problem statement:

As the number of rapes and attempt to rapes increasing every year( 2060/17-1117 recorded cases and the first month of 2017/18- 131 recorded cases) and number of workplace violence cases in a medical setting shooting up it became absolutely necessary that we as the health professionals come together and give our inputs to the concerned authorities from Nepal Police, National Woman Council, Lawyers and discuss regarding the national policies and future protocols to help eliminate the problem.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

Medical Students, Nepal Police, Policymakers from National Woman Council, Lawyers, Forensic and Public Health experts, participants from NGO for sexually assaulted, school teachers and General Public.

Objectives and indicators of success:

a.Promote medical students’ participation from all over the country, to enhance their capabilities to fight the social stigma and help the general people speak up against assault.
b. Provide a more open platform for medical students to give their honest about various policies and governmental provisions .
c. Spread awareness about the various governmental provisions that have been implemented in order to ensure that the victims will be served justice.
d. Increase advocacy skills, which will better the ability of future doctors to fight for the rights of their patients.
e. Help the school teachers understand the grave consequences of sexual assaults and help them fight it.
e. Convey attention to the public and concerned stakeholders through posters and awareness programs.
The main indicators of success was the active participation of audiences from different backgrounds- medical students, lawmakers, police personnel, sexual rights activists, forensic experts, nurses, and general public, pre and post sessions questionnaire, medical students from all over Nepal spreading the message through their stories and poems.

Methodology:

To fulfill the objectives we organized a Panel Discussion on Sexual Assault and Workplace violence where we discussed about the present scenario, steps being taken, out inputs, future plans to solve the problem and we opened the floor for discussion, Spoken Word Poetry Competition and Online Story Writing Competition on the theme ‘Embrace Your Voice’ and awareness through posters and social media.

Plans for evaluation:

The program provided a platform to all the concerned authorities including medical students to come together for the first time and discuss the problems of sexual assault. Through the questionnaires we found out that the concept of sexual assault in the medical students was very narrow and included mostly rape and people didn’t know much about workplace violence which we were able to change after the program. Also through poems and stories the participants came forward and creatively expressed their views and their experiences regarding the problem.