Abused Women Support Project (Phase Two)

The donor: Arab Gulf Development Program AGFUND

Funding volume: ($ 50,000)

Participating branches: (Edfu – Aswan – Qena)

About AGFUND

The Arab Gulf Program for Development (AGFUND) is a regional developmental donor organization, which operates from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as its headquarter. AGFUND was established in 1980 at the initiative of His Royal Highness Prince Talal bin Abdulaziz, with the support of the Gulf Cooperation Council states’ leaders (the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Qatar, and the State of Kuwait).

AGFUND works in the field of development at the international level through an active partnership with international, regional and national development organizations, government agencies, the private sector, and civil society.

AGFUND has contributed since its establishment in supporting and financing 1539 projects in some developing countries.

The project idea:

In response to the noticed needs of women dealing with the association to obtain various services, the association decided to advocate the issue of renouncing violence against women, whether in the context of the family, the street or society in general, which clarified and its features were revealed through the focus groups discussion conducted by the association with them, which concluded two main factors: –

  1. The lack of awareness among women of their rights and the protective mechanisms provided by law for them.
  2. The lack of supportive services for the battered woman in case of suffering from violence, and her need for support to overcome it and resume her life.

Accordingly, the association decided to contribute to solving this issue through two basic mechanisms:

Raise awareness of women’s rights, spread the idea of ​​non-violence in all its forms, and fight against the violence which occurs on vulnerable and marginalized groups, such as women and children in particular, and spread this idea at all levels through a set of interventions such as public meetings, media, round tables and other activities. It targets all groups of battered women and their abusive men and other men in the community, media, local government and all those who are interested in and influencing this issue

The reasons for implementing the project:

  1. Lack of awareness among women of their rights and the protective mechanisms provided by law for them
  2. Failure of the executive bodies to provide support and protection for battered women
  3. Devoting the image of battered women in the media as the ideal image for Egyptian women.
  4. Women’s reluctance to go to the listening units for fear of stigma and ostracism, and considering them out of custom

The overall goal of the project

Raising awareness of women’s rights and providing psychological, social and legal support to battered women in the communities of (Aswan – Edfu – Qena)

 

The detailed objectives of the project:

  • Providing psychological and legal services for 500 battered women by preparing 3 listening units and providing guidance to work in the association’s headquarters in (Aswan – Edfu – Qena) at the end of the project.
  • Raising awareness of the women rights, 300 women and men, through holding 6 mass gatherings in the targeted communities from the project’s seventh month until the end of the project.
  • Empowering 200 women socially and economically to raise their awareness of their rights.
  • Psychological support for those who need support.
  • Raise society’s awareness by stimulating a group of media professionals (five men and women) to make a media plan that adopts the issue of non-violence through their participation in the various project activities and in the round table and their membership in the advisory committee whose task will be to facilitate the project’s work and follow progress towards results. Planned from the first month of the project until the end of the project.

Future activities to be implemented

  1. Informative media conference for the project.
  2. Establishing 3 support and counseling units in the project’s partner branches.
  3. Capacity building of support and counseling units.
  4. Gathering the necessary documents and papers to file cases of battered women wishing to seek legal redress.
  5. Follow up the transferred cases to check the outcomes and document them in the files.
  6. 6 Public meetings targeting both men and women with the aim of discussing women’s rights and the concept of violence and protection mechanisms to 50 women and men in the targeted societies.
  7. Produce awareness-raising tools and publications on the rejection of violence against women, for distribution to women’s gathering places in different locations.
  8. Create 3 productive workshops to train women in handicrafts.
  9. Bimonthly recreational meetings.
  10. Three (one day) workshop (in each community) for men (15 of the women’s husbands participated in the silver sessions in each community with a total of 45 men) with the aim of providing a clear vision of the role that men play in the family and women’s rights and how to protect them.
  11. Hold a round table for media professionals and those interested in dealing with cases of violence monitored by the project and proposing solutions and interventions for how to address violence at a societal and legislative level.
  12. Create a website for the association and the project.