Make a voice – Speak up, Break the Silence & Ensure Justice!

January 2020 – In pursuit of achieving gender equality, women have often become the key focal point. Today, it merely tends to focus on how to empower women, how to remove barriers to include women and how to ensure that women have equal access to economic, health and other opportunities. On the contrary, gender equality should be achieved by transforming unequal power relations between men and women. Women need to work with men side by side in order to maintain the balance that hinders the process. Technology and innovation are the best means to remove barriers so that ‘no one is left behind’. 

Ramona Stephen, Marketing & Communication Advisor at Women’s Development Centre (WDC), Kandy attended a capacity building program for women’s organizations on mobile storytelling and digital advocacy called, ‘Vibrant Voices – Make your voice heard’. It was launched by Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum (SDJF) under the Media Empowerment for a Democratic Sri Lanka (MEND) Program in partnership with International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) and with the support of USAID. During the training program, she realized that technology and innovation provided un-hindered opportunities for women and they are the best way to bring up women as innovators with the shared goal of achieving women empowerment and gender equality. 

She is of the view that gender equality stimulates economic growth, which is indeed crucial for a developing country like Sri Lanka. While gender equity is accepted in the workplace in general, many organizations have discriminatory adaptations in this regard. She further emphasized the importance of creating an open space to address gender discrimination issues with the involvement of both men and women. “Being a woman and knowing the potential, drive, independence and how resourceful we can be as a group, inspired me to work on gender” added Ramona. 

Women’s voices and their participation at all levels have become more important than ever. Increased participation of women will certainly help in distancing negative gender stereotypes which could in the meantime help in the peace-building process of a nation. Ramona, while recalling her experience with the Vibrant Voices Program had this to add, “After attending the program, now we know how to create media content and disseminate them through new media, without having to rely on the mainstream media. I'm also grateful that we were given this opportunity because as a women’s organization that has constantly catered to diverse issues of women, we rarely get training opportunities as important and valuable as this". 

Vibrant Voices Program aims to widen the space for Sri Lankan women and other gender issues in the media content by using new and social media tools. Ramona strongly believes that MoJo is a fantastic tool to raise concerns of women not only within the country but globally too. She maintained a smart approach to applying her knowledge of MoJo with numerous projects undertaken at WDC. It has not only sharpened her skills on MoJo, but it has also given more visibility to the work they do. Even though WDC works on assisting socially challenged women and children of Sri Lanka by promoting women entrepreneurship, community based rehabilitation programmes for disabled women & children and legal counselling on SGBV, they were lacking the technical know-how to disseminate their stories. 

“Vibrant Voices has helped me in capturing stories of strong individuals, both female, and male. It has strengthened us as an organization to help others by addressing gender based issues, the gaps and how we can effectively find solutions to these problems”, Ramona added further. Right after the training program, she became an inducer to the rest of the participants by producing MoJos that gave powerful messages. She has beautifully captured how a girl who had a gloomy past with an abusive partner had ultimately changed her life to live with a positive hope having been directed to the correct path. She is of the view that even though, violence against women is not seen as a serious issue culturally, now it is high time to dissuade these notions. 

The MoJo about Nimalee, a female entrepreneur who overcame numerous challenges to make a living, leaves a powerful message for women across the country to empower themselves and contribute to the national economy. She is also sensitive to issues such as the rights of persons with disabilities. Her MoJo on ‘disability rights’ further elaborates on the lack of life skill trainings for differently abled people after they receive a formal education. Differently abled people rarely come up with opportunities that fit their qualifications and it has been recognized as a major gap in the social inclusion of people with disabilities. 

“The more you filter into the layers of the society, the more grounded and understanding you become towards different human conditions. MoJo has given us the confidence to voice the concerns of women in an appealing way through new media platforms”, Ramona added to her final thoughts. At a time when all media are increasingly being digitalized, 

MoJo will become very useful for women in Sri Lanka, in shaping and promoting their narratives in a digital format!

Google drive link which includes Ramona’s videos - http://bit.do/fpMb8