By Maimuna Sey-Jawo
The Gambia Teachers Union on Friday held a daylong forum on developing messages that will be used in the sensitization of the general public about violence against women and girls.
The forum held at the Union’s headquarters along the Management Development Institute (MDI) road in Kanifing was attended by the Union’s regional executive committee members, principals, young teachers and members of the Forum for Women Education.
In her statement madam Marie Antoinette Corr, sectary general of the Gambia Teachers’ Union (GTU) said the Union will host an international gender related workshop this year which will bring together 35 national and international participants including all the secretaries general, presidents and gender coordinators from The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana and Nigeria.
“We are developing gender sensitive messages that will tell our story and that messages will be used in sensitizing the general public about the violence against women and girls,” she stated
She said GTU is affiliated to Education International (EI) which is a parent body responsible for all teacher unions in the world with 33 million members from 180 countries comprising 400 Teacher Unions.
She said gender related issues are always important to education and so is the GTU as they have created a wing called Status of Women Committee.
“We are supported by Education International Regional Office in Africa to develop gender sensitive messages that will tell a story. We will sensitize the public to discourage violation of the rights of women and girls,” she disclosed.
She said the developed messages will be used to sensitize people on the violence against women and girls, saying these violations are today widespread all over the world. “The messages will be forwarded to Education International who will put them into stickers and posters that will be supplied to other Unions for sensitization.”
According to her, the union has many plans for this year which, she said would include sensitization of its executive committees and training of the Women’s Wing on information communication and technology.
For his part Mr. Essa Sowe, deputy General Secretary also emphasis more on the important of Gender Based Violence. He said they are here to develop some messages to help in addressing gender based violence both at the national and international levels.
