Violence Against Women & Girls Impacts the Whole Community
About a third of Haitian women and girls have experienced domestic or sexual violence. While the most direct, negative impact of this violence is on the physical and mental health of the survivor herself, the whole community suffers. Children conceived through rape are especially vulnerable. The risk of sexually transmitted disease, including HIV, is greatly increased, and economic development is also jeopardized.

You Can Invest in the Power of People to End Violence Against Women & Girls
Your support allows Beyond Borders to train more community activists who will use their skills to prevent and end violence against women. Beyond Borders community-based initiative, Rethinking Power, works to address the root causes of this violence—the imbalance in power between women and men in Haitian society. Each day in towns and villages throughout southeastern Haiti, dozens of female and male activists, religious leaders, community leaders, and others work to spark conversation and debate. Through Rethinking Power, we equip people to examine the power relationships in their day to day lives and become activists in the various roles they play as market women, motorcycle- taxi drivers, students, pastors, etc.

The Broader Context of this Effort
Rethinking Power is also dedicated to working with the Haitian women’s movement in advocacy, to help strengthen and broaden the base of the movement. The Haitian women’s movement is powerful, and has already done so much good in Haiti; at the same time, it also needs support from other community groups and institutions who have usually not been involved in supporting change—like the religious and community leaders Rethinking Power engages. We can make those links and link them with a whole host of new community-based activists, ready for change. In our work with local organizations, we:

• Offer training and mentoring opportunities for members of 3 local organizations based on an assessment of their strengths and their needs in receiving survivors, offering peer counseling, and advocating for their needs.
• Regularly visit each of the 3 organizations to help them think through organizational issues and how they can use their resources and people for maximum support to survivors.
• Help coordinate meetings between local organizations to discuss strengths and weaknesses across all organizations and how partnerships and sharing of resources can make them more effective.
• Connect Haitian women’s organizations with a network of people in their community going through the social change process, to improve referrals and discuss goals in common.
• Sponsor members of local organizations to participate in national events in the Haitian women’s movement.

This work gives Rethinking Power a broad view of the work to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls in southeastern Haiti. We are well placed to use this knowledge to help direct other resources and aid from outside organizations to where it will be the most useful and make the biggest impact.