Workshop educates Government ministry on gender-based violence

Some staff members from the Ministry for Youth and Sports are currently undergoing a three-day workshop on GenderBased Violence.

The workshop is being facilitated by the Fiji Women Crisis Centre (FWCC).

George Francis, director for Youth and Sports, said that all their staff from the different branches nationwide would be participating in the workshops.

Mr Francis said the first batch of workshop participants started on Monday and ended yesterday at the Central Division Conference Room, VB Complex in Suva.

He said that gender-based violence was common in our society and the staff needed to go through the workshop so that they could get better background information on how to tackle the issue.

“The workshop is to empower staff of the Ministry on the issue and also to empower them to become advocates of human rights issues especially towards woman and children,” said Mr Francis.

He said many issues going on around us were not strongly understood by the community at large. He said 20 staff members were participants in the first batch of workshop and had received their certificate of participation.

He said the facilitator FWCC would be providing the workshop to their other ministry branches in Fiji.

Mr Francis, who was also part of the first batch of workshop participants this week said, they would be spreading the message out there to the community.

He said it was challenging but they were trying to work with other stakeholders’ network, as the issue was very critical at this time. He acknowledges and thanked the FWCC for facilitating the workshop.