Schoolgirls leading their rural community in dialogue to address gender-based violence

Abstract

abstract Gender-based violence (GBV) remains a “wicked problem” in communities all over the world and requires a concerted effort from everyone to address it. While it is most often women and girls who bear the brunt of the violence, their voices are often silenced or ignored. In my work in a rural community in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, I worked with the girl participants to develop a digital dialogue tool to engage the school community in several community dialogues to address GBV, and, in so doing, make their voices heard. This article responds to the question: What are the schoolgirls’ experiences of using the digital dialogue tool in engaging rural school communities in dialogue to address GBV? To explore and understand their experiences focus group discussions were used; these were recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed. Critical audience engagement was used as a theoretical framework to make meaning of the participants’ experiences of engaging with the audience in the community dialogues. Three themes emerged from the girls’ experiences: feeling motivated to tackle the problem, creating a generative space for dialogue, and girls enabling relationships. The findings position girls as socio-political actors, which has implications for policy makers and how they might respond to communities, as well as for community-based researchers seeking to expand the ‘reach’ of the research. This study is significant as it focuses on girls’ voices in leading a community dialogue as an intervention to address GBV in a rural school community.