Dakar hosted, on Tuesday, September 3, 2024, a mobilizing event as part of the KASA Initiative, a flagship program of the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF), in partnership with the Ford Foundation-West Africa and Open Society West Africa (OSIWA). This event brought together frontline activists, donors, and pan-African institutions such as TrustAfrica to discuss the challenges and opportunities in the fight against sexual violence in Senegal.
TrustAfrica was represented by Facoumba Guèye, the Grants Manager, who shared key insights on financial support for local initiatives and the challenges organizations face in effectively combating this violence. She also highlighted TrustAfrica’s previous interventions aimed at fighting gender-based sexual violence in Francophone Africa, particularly an initiative focused on “Meeting the challenge of changing social norms to promote equality and the empowerment of women and girls in Senegal, Mali, and Burkina Faso.” TrustAfrica prioritizes women’s rights and gender justice. Its first initiative dates back to 2009 with the MDG3 project, which sought to “Strengthen the dignity of women,” with the objective of curbing violence against women and increasing their participation in political life. TrustAfrica aims to address the obstacles that hinder women’s empowerment, including violence, injustices, the effects of poverty, diseases, wars, natural disasters, and environmental degradation.
This event provided an opportunity to foster synergies and collaboration between donors, local communities, movements, social activists, and other civil society organizations for an increasingly connected social movement capable of acting collectively, sustainably, and irreversibly to curb this scourge.
