KEETMANSHOOP – The Konrad Adenauer Stiftung with co-funding from the European Union is currently hosting a weeklong workshop as part of its Empowering Civil Society Organisation (ECSO) projects in Keetmanshoop. 

This is an effort to support selected female, youth and marginalised community-led Civil Society Organisations to become key actors in achieving gender equality and youth inclusion in civic life. 

Project manager Charlemaine Husselmann in an interview said the initiative focusses its efforts in //Kharas, Kunene and Erongo regions. 

Its overall objective is to contribute to strengthening the capacity of youth and women’s organisations in Namibia in achieving an inclusive democracy. 

“It will thus support selected female and youth-led CSOs to become key actors in achieving gender equality and youth inclusion in civic life,” she added. Husselmann continued: “The project will furthermore focus on two components, namely capacity-building as well as advocacy activities for the betterment of the participating beneficiaries”. 

She added that the module to be dissected during the training will provide a broader understanding of gender issues, gender-based violence and the core causes of it. 

“It further aims to capacitate and give knowledge needed to civil society organisations to address gender-based violence at community level. Probed about positive results like a decrease in incidents of gender-based violence reported, she said it is difficult to determine it at this stage. 

She added: “It will only be possible to measure the desired results at the end of the training through monitoring and evaluation, and drawing related statistics accordingly”. 

-sklukowski@nepc.com.na