Embrace Equity to transform whole communities

Rhoda’s husband stopped providing for the family. She was left to handle the financial burden alone. As a result, her children couldn’t go to school because she couldn’t afford the fees. He also had a number of ongoing affairs with other women, which added to Rhoda’s pain.

But what could she do?

Suicidal thoughts

She contemplated suicide. ‘I felt worthless and didn’t know when this would come to an end,’ Rhoda tells us. ‘At one point, I wanted to put an end to my life.’

She also felt too ashamed to consider leaving the marriage because her father was a church leader who would not accept or encourage divorce – even though the situation Rhoda was living in was deeply destructive.

Rhoda says she didn’t want to offend or disappoint the people around her, and so she persevered silently.

Even after her husband died, Rhoda lived with the physical and psychological damage that the violence left. She says she wouldn’t wish what she went through on anyone.

Hope and healing from sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV)

Desperate, violent and painful situations like this are allowed to carry on often because of deeply ingrained patterns of gender inequality within societies and, as in Rhoda’s case, even within the church.

It’s a value question. And about challenging harmful inherited behaviours that may have persisted for centuries. Recognising this, Tearfund has developed a programme called Transforming Masculinities. This helps men and women within communities to better understand the roles and values of women to help build equity. It also addresses the inequalities that lead to and perpetuate the situations that not only exclude women’s voices from every area of life, but also allow for them to face abuse.

After being trained in the Transforming Masculinities approach through our local partner in her community, Rhoda was enrolled to become a gender champion and she also received psychosocial support and training through our programme, Journey to Healing. Now, she is using her experiences to make a difference in the lives of other people – particularly those going through intimate partner violence and other forms of gender injustice.

‘These training sessions transformed my life and also offered me the opportunity to reach out to others through the community dialogue sessions,’ says Rhoda. She has become an encouragement and an inspiration to young women in her community, who see her as a role model and come to her for counselling.

Transforming communities

‘This has helped to heal my wounds and also built my capacity to transform my community and I am so excited,’ says Rhoda.

Rhoda tells us that, through this programme, she has learnt to forgive the hurts of the past and forge ahead. Feeling strengthened in herself by this, she is now helping to transform relationships within her community by having conversations that get all members of society involved. Gender equity will not happen without the purposeful efforts of everyone. It is a community issue and the answer lies within our communities too – both on a local and on a global scale.

Rhoda’s hope for the future is to see her community freed from violence against women and children – a place where justice prevails and people are treated equally.

We share Rhoda’s hope. We long, with her, to see all people thrive and to fulfil their God-given potential.

‘I am now a transformed person and I am so happy to use my experience to touch the lives of others,’ Rhoda says. ‘The project has taught me a lot which I am sharing with others around me. I am now a happy woman.’

Sexual and gender-based violence and gender inequality are not God’s plan. But Rhoda is. And you are.