Members of the Pacific Women’s Network Against Violence Against Women (PWNAVAW) from 13 crisis centres are in Lautoka, Fiji to discuss the roll-out of the Gender-Based Violence Counsellor Training Package for the Pacific.
The event is organised in partnership with the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) and the UN Women Fiji Multi-Country Office (MCO), through the Pacific Partnership to End Violence Against Women (Pacific Partnership).
The meeting is funded primarily by the European Union, UN Women and the Australia and New Zealand governments.
In a joint statement by FWCC and UN Women MCO, the three-day meeting of Pacific experts will see the continuation of decades long progress led by the crisis centres towards standardising best practice approaches to gender-based violence counselling in the Pacific.
FWCC co-ordinator and PWNAVAW chair Shamima Ali said Fiji was pleased to host network members from around the Pacific.
“We are pleased to be hosting and to discuss how we will adapt and roll-out the gender-based counsellor training package in each of our countries,” Ms Ali said.
“It’s a good opportunity for us to also discuss the next big step in this process which is the regional counsellor training-of-trainer’s workshop coming up in April.”
She said the aim of the workshop was for all women and girl survivors across the Pacific to access uniform and consistent survivor-centred counselling from trained counsellors at the centres.
The package, adapted from training materials previously developed and used by FWCC across the region over the past three decades, would be used by new and experienced trainers from Pacific Island countries working on violence against women, girls and women’s human rights.
Representative for UN Women Delphine Serumaga said they were pleased to continue supporting the PWNAVAW in responding to violence against women and girls.
“This will further enhance the accessibility and quality of services for women and girls across the region for years to come,” she said.
Following the three-day meeting, representatives of the PWNAVAW and UN Women will join the Pacific Community and the counselling sub-committee of the Regional Working Group on the implementation of family protection and domestic violence legislation.
The two-day regional stakeholder dialogue will discuss, among other key issues, the development of a regional gender-based violence and domestic violence counselling framework.
