In order to prevent, respond to Gender Based Violence and provide psychosocial support to women and girls in the Northwest region, the Alumni of International Visitors Leadership Program; PEARL Foundation, National Organization of Human Rights office NW and Mother of Hope Cameroon provided training to focal points, community service providers of GBV on how to Look, Learn and Link victims effectively to get required attention and help.
The training took place at Hope Baptist church Ndamukong in Bamenda on March 28th 2023. The activity is taking place in a town where amongst other vulnerable groups, women and girls have been exposed to harm in the face of a crisis for over 6years.
Coordinator of PEARL Foundation, Nsono Josephine engaged participants in modules, discussing psychosocial support more practically, to demonstrate what obtains.
She task community service providers to be on alert and ensure that victims of GBV get required help, attention.
"In the advent of the crisis, the scenario on GBV has skyrocketed. The different cases received on a daily basis have increased. The pain is huge and though we are in a context where the crisis is kind of abating, the cases of GBV get worse based on those that we already registered. It remains a call for concern".
"There is alot of gap, for the previous period that they recieved the training, that's why we are training these Community service providers. We have had alot of clients go and come back worst than they were. We are organizing this to ensure that there are effective linkages", Nsono Josephine, PEARL Foundation.
Look and listen to a survivor is priority to these Alumni civil society organizations, linking the survivor to a particular civil society organization that is providing a specific service.
Mental health and psychosocial support is one of the key remedies Community agents, Service providers have learned overtime. The process to Look, Learn and Link are procedures applied when a volunteer , mobilizer identifies a survivor.
Most victims, survivors have need for GBV experts to journey with them in their pain and help them get over the trauma.
The need to link effectively remains priority for GBV service providers, a key aspect for Community service providers, not just talking to the survivor to make the victim feel save.
"We re in a context where community leaders have been trained over time but we still have a huge gap. We are probing referral and the referee,
As community providers u should be able to link services even in the hardest of scenarios", Nsono Josephine.
This activity is funded by the US State embassy, with the objective to train GBV Community service providers, who will inturn ensure that GBV survivors get access to required services.