Innovation: Centres4Her intensifies fight to end violence against women and girls

Centres4Her with support from UN women has intensified the fight against violence faced by girls and women in the country.

Centres4Her is a digital platform designed to link survivors of violence to available post violence services nearest to them through a mobile app with ease and confidentiality.

In March 2018, Centres4Her received funding from UN-Women through Makerere University RAN Lab after a hackathon to bring the idea into life.

With support from Makerere University RAN Lab, a fact finding survey was conducted in Gulu to understand the situation of the women and girls so as to build a solution that is responsive to their needs in as far as ending violence against women and girls is concerned.

Some of the activities conducted between September and December 2019 to fight violence against women and girls include; meeting with key stakeholders, mapping centres providing post violence services ,Development of a web and mobile app among others.

This year between January and March, two college activations where organised at Makerere University to create more awareness about the app through screening movies related to GBV and holding discussions at the end of each movie screening.

The team also conducted a movie screening gender mainstreaming directorate,of the targeted 100 participants, only 47 turned up due to some few challenges.

Those were some of the many activities that were done within the stipulated period of time to ensure the smooth fight against vice.

The team is expecting to achieve more in regard to the mission including; updating admin app to capture reporting on sex and age which means upgrading log-in system for users to register with their sex and age.

However, officials said the query reports from the admin app are able to provide information regarding category of service accessed (legal, counselling or police services) and type (if the user placed a call to the service provider or asked for directions).

The team also expect to revisit all the centres that are mapped since some were affected by Covid-19 and closed especially shelters.

They said they will also popularise the Centres4Her app to reach out to more people with support from the UN Women and RAN communication persons.

"Scale up implementation (collage activations and other University interventions) to other Universities to reach out to more young women in other universities with accurate GBV information and encourage them to download and use the app,"said one of the team members.

Holding radio and TV interviews to sensitise listeners about different GBV issues and create awareness about the Centres4Her app are among other activities expected to be fulfilled for the successful completion of the mission.