SOLIDARITE DES JEUNES FILLES POUR L’EDUCATION ET L’INTEGRATION SOCIOPROFESSIONNELLE (SOJFEP)

SOJFEP started in 2011 in a context where rural, indigenous and marginalized girls and young women did not have access to education, the means to claim their rights, resources and opportunities for their empowerment, participation and socio-professional, technological, political and regional integration. The group’s mission is to empower, mobilize, involve and support the girls and young women of rural, indigenous and marginalized communities in the defense and promotion of their rights, with the aim of contributing to the advancement of Gender equality, the promotion of identity and sexual diversity and feminism within indigenous and ethnic minority communities. Their main targets are adolescent girls, girls and young women from rural communities, indigenous and marginalized, disadvantaged and excluded women, including sexual minorities and other young women with disabilities.

The group’s “Stop Violence against girls in schools and families, Let’s preserve girl’s education” campaign in the educational sub-division of Fizi II South-Kivu in DR Congo, has allowed them to integrate the legal prescriptions for sexual and gender-based violence into the school regulations and school governance structures, as well as to increase the participation of girls in the activism against school and domestic violence, in the implementation of repressive spaces of violence (Paillottes Justice aux Filles : PAJF) and the participation in decision-making (pupils’ committees and children’s parliaments), which have now integrated parity and gender through the reinforcement of early leadership for women in schools (establishment of safe talking spaces for girls: Girls’ parliaments) The campaign resulted in the establishment of a school community (parents, Pupils and teachers) co-committed to the early prevention (education and leadership) and secondary education (monitoring of gender-based violence in schools and early and forced marriages of children, alert and protection). You can read the full report here: www.genreenaction.net/…/sojfep_rdc_campagne_stop_violence_a_l_egard_des_filles…

With the support of FRIDA, SOJFEP will implement a Project” Female Teen Clubs at School and Online for the Prevention of Violence “. The goal of this project is to promote and integrate early and active feminism among adolescents through access, networking and solidarity at school and online for the prevention of sexual and gender-based violence in school, family and social settings.