International Women’s Day 2017

Oath-taking ceremony for enlightenment, against darkness

We Can is organizing an unique celebration of 8th March program at the first moment of International women’s day since last eight years. The same event is also being organized at 48 different districts by alliance member organization, District Alliance members and Change makers. Centrally the program was held at “Cental Shaheed Minar” jointly organized. Honourable state minister for Ministry of Women and Children Affairs (MoWCA), Ms. Meher Afroze Chumki, MP, Dr. Dipu Moni, MP, Chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Co-Chair M B Akhter attended the program, together with women leaders from various women led organization also attended the event.

Participants of the Event:

• Women Activities

• Officials from like-minded Organization

• People form different layers

Approximately 1000 people were physically attended the program at Central Sahid Minar on 12.01 am.

The theme for this years International women’s day’, 2017 was “Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030” The reason behind this slogan was to touch of this very important moment of Bangladesh; we express our firm determination to protest the ongoing violence and discrimination in work place and register a strong demand to ensure equal rights of women at all the spheres of life. Each speakers of the event have expressed their rage violence against women. Everyone demanded to stop all form of violence against women.

Before the mass gathering; documentary on early marriage show and popular cultural celebrity were meet with the students of Dhaka University at Rokeya, Samsunnahar, kuwat moitree, Begum Fazilatunnessa Mujib and Sufia kamal Hall. Banners, Posters, Announcement and leaflet were distributed for mobilizing girls from Dhaka University. Communication with Teachers, Hall Provosts, house tutor, Proctor were been regularly meet and shared the experience of program.

In the Central Sahid Minar program a huge number of Change Makers were present. Different professionals, women parliament members, development activist, women business group representative and a big number of male have participated at the program. National Televisions, radio and news channels gave media coverage for the program. Fabulous cultural events by cultural group and Change Maker Theater & dance groups, Slogans kept the place alive till the last minutes of the events. Representatives from Change Makers parliament members, NGO activist, women business group representative gave speech in the event. They expressed their experience what harassment, violence or discrimination they are facing in the speech. Honourable state minister for Ministry of Women and Children Affairs (MoWCA), Ms. Meher Afroze (Chumki) MP, Chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Dipu Moni, MP,, Co-Chairperson of We Can Alliance to End Domestic Violence, M B Akhter, former advisor of caretaker government Rasheda K. Choudhury, Representative of Mohila Parished, Women activist were together with women leaders from various women led organization also attended the event.

Campaign events in Field:

During the campaign period different events have been arranged to celebrate international women’s day at field level. The activities were:

• Candle Vigil
• Press Conference
• Sharing meeting
• Rally
• Discussion meeting
• Day Observation with Government
• Cultural Shows
• Distribution of leaflet, flayers
• Theater show
• Poster campaign
• Competition

Special Candle Vigil at 12.01am:

As like previous years We Can continued organizing the unique celebration of 8th March program at first moment of day. 19 District alliances organized special candle Vigil at 12.01am including national alliance in Dhaka. The theme of this International women’s day’ 08 March, 2017 was “Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030” Districts alliances have organized cultural program from the evening of 7th March’ 2017, these initiative and endeavors have been aimed at ensuring safety and security for women at all places at all hours. All participants of the events have taken special oath to express their solidarity to end violence against women. At different districts, the event was organized at the center point of the district, at some places the event was organized at schools and college compounds. Significant number of change makers, students, women activists, and media personal including mass people were presents. Before organizing the event Chang Makers help to spread out the massage to the locality and organizations by using existing network, distributing material and leaflet. District alliance members and national committee’s district representatives were presents and facilitated the campaign program.

Other programs:

• Participate in Prime Minister’s (PM) central program: Government of Bangladesh  observe 8 March all over the country and as a part of celebration organize a national  programme at Dhaka to celebrate international women day, where the Prime Minister (PM) invite to national activist, women leaders and GO-NGO representatives. This year almost 20 representatives from Change Makers, districts alliance and lead organization were present and got the opportunity to share their experience to national leaders.

• Participate in district level government program: Government of Bangladesh observe 8^thMarch all over the country; and as a part of celebration a national programme at Dhaka were been held to celebrate international women day, where government officials from different ministry and administration, activist, women leaders and GO-NGO representatives were present. At local level district alliance and government jointly celebrated 8^th March’17 jointly with participating at rally and other cultural activities.

• Organized Popular Events at community level: WE CAN alliance have organized events and activities at multiple locations across the Country. Tailor-made and designed for specific groups, the majority of the change makers participated actively.

• Distribution of Behavioral Communication Change (BCC) materials: To reach out to as many people as possible, the campaign using multiple materials innovatively such as; poster, leaflet, sticker, newsletter and booklet. One handbill was developing focusing the 8 March theme for the year 2017. All district alliance got the material before 8 March. So it had played important role to mass people about mobilization.

• Partnerships: In keeping with WE CAN national alliance mandate to facilitate and create networks for action, the majority of programmes were organized in partnership with district alliance, organizations, educational institutions, service providers and civil society. Working in partnership ensures that ending domestic violence is everyone’s responsibility. We Can has organize joint program where Oxfam-gb, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (EKN) and BSR have other programme, so We Can and Others had made common action plan and implemented.  We Can alliance actively participated in Social Action Committee (SAC) gathering, before organizing the gathering We Can participated in preparation meeting..

• Media campaign: Dissemination of relevant information regarding violence against women, early marriage, and worker rights through popular media at wider range has been initiated during March campaign. For 3 days in addition to the campaign calendar, print and electronic Media have highlighted campaign news; print and electronic media have covered and circulated news on campaign events. 8 March celebration news covered in 24 Channel News, 4 live news covered and 34 newspapers and online news porter.