Tackling sexual and gender-based violence on campus: An intervention at the Durban University of Technology

Abstract

This profile describes and reflects on an initiative aimed at developing strategies to tackle sexual and gender-based violence on a university campus. It analyses the activities of young women as an organised group, the Girls Against Sexual Violence and Abuse (GASVA), and the ways in which these helped to build their resilience against sexual violence on campus. The profile comes out of a participatory research project conducted at the Durban University of Technology (DUT). It involved a group of 12 female university students and myself as a mentor and ‘insider researcher’ in addressing sexual and gender-based violence on campus. Established in the latter part of 2015, the group is part of a larger project, the Networks for Change and Well-being, an international interdisciplinary partnership of institutions in Canada and South Africa working to advance ‘girl-led, from the ground up’ interventions aimed at addressing sexual violence against girls and young women. The project uses participatory visual methodologies to provide leadership development and mentoring, as well as to open up spaces for dialogue around sexual violence against women on campus and strategies for addressing them. Through campus dialogues, the use of participatory visual methodologies (photovoice, art, drama and poetry) and social media, GASVA were able to articulate their experiences of sexual violence in and around campus, and to provide a space where others could voice theirs. In these spaces, they identified strategies for addressing sexual violence on campus. After 18 months of participating in the project, GASVA demonstrate leadership capability and resilience and nurture these in their peers as they strive to engage with the campus community in finding solutions to sexual violence in and around campus.