Gender Inequality has always been that persistent thorn in the flesh of a girl. No matter how much we continue to fight it, it continues to fight back; revealing its sharp edges, and this injustice has been multiplied by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
COVID-19 devastated the lives of girls. School closures, economic stress, and service disruptions put the health, wellbeing, and futures of the most vulnerable girls at risk.
And as we work toward a post-pandemic era, it is of high importance that true recovery must be gender-equal.
We talk a lot about girls’ empowerment and safety around here, but the best stories are usually when - you guessed it - women invest in women. Whether we’re investing time, support, money, or more in one another; when women come together, everyone wins.
In late 2021 through funding from the Atlantic Institute, we were honored and privileged to have been able to come together with women and girls from different walks of life to co-create and birth the Holistic Safety Analysis and Intervention (HoSAI) program.
HoSAI is a three-step program that gives girls the tools to solve safety problems in their context. The three steps involve:
(i) Analysis; identify whether the primary cause of a safety concern is internal (mind, emotion, or cultural) or external (body, societal or environmental).
(ii) Education; recommend a learning curriculum from SAFIGI’s Safety Education course to address the specific issue.
(iii) Intervention; after customized learning, the program closes with a customized HoSAI safety kit to alleviate or respond to the safety concern.
And at the foundation of the HoSAI program is the blueprint, which is a guide to understanding the need for holistic safety in our evolving world and how to implement this approach when solving arising safety concerns.
The HoSAI blueprint is the theory of change governing the Safety First for Girls Outreach Foundation (SAFIGIs) Holistic Safety and Intervention Program. The blueprint is written in the context and with a focus on girls, keeping in mind that every girl exists within a community.
As it is nearly impossible to overstate the value of women coming together, the holistic safety blueprint can also be used by frontline feminists of any age and organizations working directly or providing services to girls.
Author Bio
Kabuku Chileshe Kabwela is an embodiment of multiple skills, talents, and interests that seamlessly merge to create her life, work, and career. She is a Zambian-based trained communication and PR specialist with over 2 years of working experience in Marketing and Communications.
Kabuku’s skills include the ability to string words together in the art of creative direction and storytelling, data entry, the ability to multi-task and prioritize projects, content creation and copywriting, basic graphic designing, photography as well as social media management to mention but a few.
Her Hobbies include; crafting, traveling, thrilling adventure, writing, reading, listening to music, and watching series and movies.