Grandmother Project: A New Approach to Ending Harmful Traditional Practices
Older women and grandmothers play a very important role in many traditional communities; they are often consulted on family affairs and conflict resolution and just as often pointed to as the negative drivers behind harmful traditional practices. The Grandmother Project in Senegal has identified grandmothers as vital and viable agents of positive change. The organization works with them as active community assets to promote maternal and child nutrition, early childhood development, and education, and, most recently, to eradicate female genital mutilation and HIV/AIDS.

'Mission Possible' in Mali Thanks to Partnership Initiative
The Mali Mission and its local partners faced a discouraging reality six years ago: women were having too many children and too many mothers were dying. Now, thanks to a partnership undertaken by the Mission and IGWG, some important changes have taken place on the ground.

Transforming Male Gender Roles to Combat Cross-Generational Sex
Cross-generational sex—often known as Sugar Daddy syndrome—is a pattern of sexual behavior between young women and much older men that brings increased health risks and consequences for the young women. While few large-scale interventions have been undertaken to combat this risky behavior, and even fewer have been evaluated, an important collaboration in Uganda between the government, local organizations, and USAID may be leading the way.

Film Raises Awareness of the Link Between Violence Against Women and AIDS
Mama Joyce and Josephine are unlikely heroines. Both women were brought low by abusive husbands who beat them, took away their dignity and choices, and left them with AIDS. Yet both women emerged as heroines in "SASA! A Film About Women, Violence and HIV/AIDS." This film tells the story of how these courageous women triumphed over gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS and gained power that helped them organize, become activists in their communities, and build meaningful and rewarding lives.

Addressing the Physical and Mental Health of Women and Adolescents Trafficked in Europe
Women who have been trafficked often suffer from multiple physical and mental health problems, but research shows that with one month of professional care after they have been freed, these same women demonstrate vast improvement. Charlotte Watts, co‑author of 'Stolen Smiles,' talks to the IGWG's Gender‑Based Violence Task Force.

Using Community Theater and Peer Education to Discuss HIV Risk Behaviors and Gender-Based Violence in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
The Tuelimishane HIV and Violence Prevention project uses community-based theater as a medium for peer education related to HIV and gender-based violence. The Tanzanian project, which was partially funded by an IGWG small grant, found a "clear association between men’s HIV risk behaviors and their reported use of violence."

Long-Held Assumptions Pose Obstacles in the Fight Against Domestic Violence
According to a World Health Organization study that assessed the impact of a community-based intervention designed to reduce domestic violence in Rakai, deeply embedded attitudes may pose formidable obstacles to change. (June 2007)

Implications for HIV/AIDS, Conflict, and Violence
The language used to refer to young men in the African context is often pejorative. But Gary Barker and Christine Ricardo of Instituto Promundo argue in a report for the World Bank that these depictions fail to take into account the plurality of young men and realities in the region. If programs are going to be effective in addressing conflict, violence, and HIV/AIDS in the region, they contend, more sophisticated gender analyses are needed that also include men and boys. (May 2006)

An Education in Making Schools Safe in Africa
It is widely accepted that, in order to promote gender equality and empower women, girls must stay in school. But what if it isn't that simple, what if by sending girls into schools you are actually exposing them to violence and victimization, to bullying, rape, and molestation by classmates and even by teachers? That is the conundrum faced by the Safe Schools Program, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) Office of Women in Development. "How do we make the classroom an environment with healthy interactions among students, among teachers, and between teachers and students?" asks the director of the program. It is a question that drives the pilot program examining gender-based violence in schools in Malawi and Ghana. (January 2006)

After the Tsunami, a Drive to Reverse Tubal Ligations in Tamil Nadu
Last December's Indian Ocean tsunami killed more than 100,000 children—from East Africa to Southeast Asia. Now, one state government in India is offering free reversals of tubal ligations to women there who lost children in the disaster and wish to conceive again, reports a new article from the Population Reference Bureau (PRB). But for some family planning experts in India, the new program is a stark reminder that India's health bureaucracy fails to devote sufficient counseling and other resources to promote easily reversible contraceptive methods. (July 2005)

Inheritance Rights: The Gendered Experience of Loss
When Angeline Siparo, who runs the country office for the POLICY Project in Nairobi, lost her beloved husband Billie in August 2002, she received a devastating first-hand lesson on the need for advocacy for women's inheritance rights in Kenya. (September 2004)

Reproductive Health Programs Need to Involve Men
Conflicting interests and inequities between men and women pose serious obstacles to good health. Recently, however, there has been increased awareness of the need to actively involve men in reproductive health programs. (November 2003)