MenEngage tackle gender issues
Ngamane Karuaihe-Upi of MenEngage Namibia
Ngamane Karuaihe-Upi, MenEngage Namibia Steering Committee Member and James Itana from Lifeline Childline Namibia were the facilitators of the workshop which was held in May in the capital.
According to Karuaihe-Upi, media practitioners from different media houses where invited, as usual when it comes to gender issues, but only female media practitioners were present at the one and half day workshop. Their male counter parts did not bother to attend the workshop.
Ngamane made reference to this through out the workshop stating that gender issues should be tackled by both male and female counterparts, to find lasting solutions to address Intimate Partner Violence.
He also passed around articles written by journalist on gender issues and advised them on how to improve these articles and what was lacking and missing in them. “Journalist should report more in-depth on gender issues and not just on the surface, to make the community more aware off these issues,” he added.
James Itana, Gender Programmes Coordinator, Lifeline/ChildLine Namibia, which is the Secretariate of MenEngage Namibia, said that this is but the first of many efforts that they shall invest in working with the media as they see themselves as partners who share a common goal when it comes to informing and educating the public as well as holding government, civil societies and the private sector accountable. The workshop proved to be a success and we enjoyed the many deep conversations we had about Intimate Partner Violence,” he said.
Some of the topics that were tackled at the workshop were, understanding gender based violence and intimate partner violence, sexual violence, gender socialization, influence of the media on gender, gender based violence and intimate partner violence and identifying the roles and actions that different media platforms can play.
