2022 March 8 Fund project grant awarded
It is our great pleasure to announce that a €10,000 grant from the 2022 GRÓ GEST March 8 Fund has been awarded to Claudia Pamela Chavarría Machado, GEST alumna of 2021 for the project Community response to access to the right of women to live free from violence in Mexico City. Ms. Machado is a Research and Development Coordinator with Iniciativa Ciudadana y Desarrollo (INCIDE) Social in Mexico City.
The project officially began on August 8 2022 and is now well underway.
Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is one of Mexico's most prevalent types of violence and in the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic the number of reports increased. The response from the justice system has failed to provide safe and efficient solutions, and the services and programs for victims and survivors of IPV have been unable to consider the efficiency of working with communities.
Ms. Machado’s project proposes to place victims' needs in the center and building a community-based response (CBR) while aiming for structural changes. The project will
- Initiate actions with the participation of local communities by promoting the integration of a committee that addresses the issue of IPV, called Committee to access to the right of women to live free from violence in Mexico City. The committee will promote the demands of IPV victims and survivors and promote the implementation of concrete actions.
- Provide capacity-building alternatives and gather data to begin to transform a generic response to IPV to an intersectional one.
- Build a 10-months safe learning space in Mexico City for promoting literacy in access to social services, financial services, legal and non-legal alternatives to protect oneself and/or get out of violent relationships.
CBR is a welcome new approach to facing the urgent increment and isolation of victims and survivors of IPV, with the goal not only to provide options for women to exit violent relationships but also to be a part of a transformative process where communities engage and participate in working together to change the reality of violence as something normal.
The project relates directly to GEST priorities, especially SDG 5 and SDG 16. It is built on a nuanced legal analysis and considers the aftermath of COVID-19 and the shifting landscape of violence that has come with it. Instead of sticking with older models, the project builds on cutting edge work to introduce a comprehensive overhaul of Mexico City’s response to intimate partner violence by supporting victims while addressing both the roots and causes of violence. The proposed project’s survivor-cantered approach brings together intersectionality, feminist legal theory and education to better address this pressing issue.
The March 8 Fund was awarded for the first time in 2020/21 under the name 'GEST alumni fund' to Ms Chinenye Anekwe (alumna of 2018), who received a grant for the project Business Booster Programme for 100 Rural Women Energy Entrepreneurs, a project which far exceeded expectations.
We hereby extend our hearty congratulations to Ms. Machado and look forward to witnessing the realization of her project.