Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Games and art to tackle abuses

Wednesday, 26 September 2012
Mom Kunthear
The Phnom Penh Post

A sexual health and gender NGO is seeking entertaining solutions to the serious problem of violence against women.

Cambodia HIV/AIDS Education and Care (CHEC) is using volleyball games, videos, posters, dramatic performances and a grant of about US$20,000 from Spanish NGO Paz y Desarrollo to encourage men in Kampot province to reduce gender violence in their communities, the NGO announced before last night’s official project launch.

“We are not doing enough to reduce violence over the country,” Dr Heng Phirum, CHEC’s deputy director, said.


“The aim of our project is to use village volleyball games to spread the word among more than 15,000 men ages 15 to 49 in three Kampot districts about how to be good men in their communities and stop violence against women.”

The project also involves distributing informational posters and DVDs among houses and coffee shops, Phirum said.

A dramatic performance scheduled for the project’s launch last night sought to cement the idea that “all forms of violence against women are never justifiable”, according to CHEC’s press release.

CHEC is seeking for more donors so that it can spread the project to other provinces, Phirum said.

He added that the project will run for a year and that he expects success because local authorities support and participate in it.

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