Spotlight Story

Story Workshop Teams Up With Cordaid to Support Efforts to Stem Gender-Based Violence in Malawi

7th February 2006 -- Story Workshop, with support from Cordaid of the Netherlands, has launched a radio project aimed at addressing the root causes of gender-based violence in order to help combat the problem in Malawi.

Gender-based violence affects men and women at every layer of Malawian society. Through 18 months of radio dramas and panel discussions based on Story Workshop’s edu-tainment approach, Kamanga Zula -- which is a Malawian proverb that. loosely translated, means "Prevention is better than cure" -- aims to contribute to better communication among men and women, increased understanding of the causes and issues surrounding gender-based violence, and promotion of a more favourable public climate towards the real empowering of women.

The program will add prevention by education and skill building to the existing dialogue and programming around gender-based violence in Malawi. By breaking the silence and enhancing open communication on all levels of gender relations in the public debate as well as in the family and among couples and friends, Story Workshop’s programs aim to address the root causes of gender-based violence. Some of the strategies of the initiative include:

• To present a focused picture of physical violence against women in their own homes
• To use a man-to-man approach to de-popularize the myth that a “real man” beats his wife
• To educate family marriage counsellors (ankhoswe) that sending women back to partners who abuse them is a misuse of their influence.
• To influence police, paralegals and courts to be more aggressive in prosecuting perpetrators even when they are powerful men.
• To use culture to combat the excuse of “culture”.
• To break the silence that is sustained by pressuring women to accept this as a “bedroom issue” and not a public or legal issue.

Story Workshop will partner with Women’s Voice, a Malawian NGO devoted to promotion and protection of justice and welfare of women, to provide surrpot and resources to women suffering from abuse.

As with all of Story Workshop’s programs, radio dramas will be based on real-life stories of Malawians. Panel discussions will complement the radio drama and include policymakers, community leaders, law enforcement officers, women and men.  

For more information, contact Programme Director Joke van Kampen