Community Group Meeting with Women and Girls
As a women right’s organization, Pragroshor’s main objective is to build a national survivor’s network where women who suffers from domestic violence and live from different slums of Dhaka city can share their situation. Here they can learn how to break a social taboo and can express their feelings, ideas, thoughts, and living condition, and gather knowledge about the feminist approach. Pragroshors’ working process is to develop a multi-sectorial program. We create a platform for connecting survivors of gender-based violence and developing a multi-sectorial, responsive linkage mechanism that will link survivors of SGBV with each other. Pragroshor organizes weekly meetings with survivors at slum areas to reduce their stress, inform SGBV related support service, providing govt. hotline numbers for reducing violence, feminist perspective views, gender issues, women leadership, importance of vocational training, and impact of patriarchy, difference forms of violence, and how they can reduce it and so on. As nowadays violence against women is increasing in many ways, it is a fundamental focus to inform women who live in a vulnerable situation that how they can protect themselves and stay safe. Community group meetings with group members are an event where women and girls can learn to know about the gender discrimination and violence situation in society. Community mobilization contributes to giving back the affected population a sense of control over their lives. There are likely to be formal and informal structures through which people organize themselves to meet collective needs as well as protection mechanisms. Even if these have been disrupted, they can be reactivated and supported as part of the process of enabling an effective emergency response. An approach which mobilizes people’s own resources to protect their families and neighbors creates a sense of community and helps children and their families recover and begin to rebuild their live. Pragroshor has formed 20 groups in Kallyanpur Pora Basti slum, and also will form more 14 groups in Mohammadpur Rahim Baparir Ghat Basti. Pragroshor will form women groups involving young generations along with 02 support groups with men and boys. The team arrange meetings with these 36 groups of people in their places. Though these meeting team discuss about various issues of violence and rights of women. These are:
Adverse effect of child marriage
Problem of adolescent period
Women rights and women movement
How to access hotline number when they fall in domestic violence
What is gender, sex, gender discrimination and gender-based violence.
About vocational training
Importance of involving in human rights organization
Importance of self-skill development
Discuss about their family and personal issues.
Way to get legal and psychological support from Pragroshor along with other organizations.
Community group meetings has been proven to be is an opportunity to empower women, girls and transgender who suffers different kinds of violence in their day-to-day life, as well as creating a safe space where they can come together and release their stress with get some peaceful memories. Moreover, survivors will get information about SGBV related support service and legal aid counseling.