Visuals for Gender has successfully organized a two-day workshop on how to produce insightful data visualizations and applications that will educate the ordinary Ghanaian on gender-based violence at their Office Complex (Mobile Web GH) located in North Legon, Accra.
The workshop themed; Hacking for Gender: Combating gender-based violence with the power of technology, was held on Friday, March 3rd – Saturday, March 4th, 2018, with lots of participants from different backgrounds teaming up to identify and find solutions to all forms of gender related problems in the country.
Elikplim Sablah, the communications Manager of Visuals for Gender in a brief conversation with Nambe TV affirmed the decision VFG to organize such a powerful workshop. In addition to that, he outlined his organization’s readiness to get more people on board who will champion a campaign to put an end to all forms of [gender-based] violence.
“The Gender Hackthon was organized after coming into realization how useful it will be at the end of the day, and we thought it wise not to do it alone. This compelled us to invite the General Public which included; the Media, NGOs, CSOs, and students to also come and learn the various concepts in handling and visualizing data.”
The communications Manager went on to indicate their commitment to organize more of such events in the near future so as to achieve its aims and objectives.
“This is an ongoing project, and the first time we are reaching out to people from outside. We won’t end here but reach out to more people, as well as embark on Campus tour in the near future. To be honest with you, we are very passionate about working with people across the country.”
He further encouraged the general public to involve themselves in every data driven advocacy which will enable them find answers to sentimental issues.
Also, Princess Erwina Ndom, an Assistant Communications Director for Visuals for Agenda believes that, coming up with the Hackathon Workshop to visualize data will certainly draw the attention of Government and its citizens to fight against issues of violence and stigmatization associated with Gender.
“What we aimed to achieve was to use visualizations and Info graphs to tell the stories of victims of gender based violence. In a country like Ghana, we have realized that, victims of violence often keep quiet for the fear stigmatization or rejection, and the possible way to get the attention of everyone was to come out with this project. At the end of everything, our goal has been achieved, and it is not going to end here. We are going to collaborate with all persons who participated in the workshop, and we shall come out with more educative projects.”
Meanwhile, all the participants who attended the event on the first day were placed into groups and trained on how to develop visualizations for gender disaggregated data. These groups were also tasked to bring out strategic plans aimed at ending all forms of gender-based violence.
The second day was set aside for these participants to submit their research findings gathered on the first day. Not just that, there was a stakeholders’ dialogue which sparked interesting conversations between the organizers and the trainees.
After series of presentations, a group called #TheWinningTeam stood tall and emerged winners at the end of everything.
Some participants who attended the workshop voiced out their appreciation and satisfaction about the entire process, stressing on the need for more educative sessions to be organized periodically.
The workshop which attracted key personalities such as Esther Armah (An award winning International Journalist), who doubled as the keynote speaker for the day, ended with a donation of GH¢3,000.00 to #TheWinningTeam, who are to embark on a campaign to educate the public on the need to stop gender-based violence for the next sixty (60) days.
About Visuals for Gender
Visuals for Gender is an initiative that seeks to equip citizens, policy makers and Civil Society Organizations to understand gender-based issues using both dynamic and static data visualizations. The data sets are used on the following: violence, child marriages, defilement, rape etc. The goal is to highlight / amplify the critical gender-related issues in our society, share them with citizens, policymakers and journalists to take actions on them.
Source: Patrick Nambe, Ghana Institute of Journalism.
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