AURORA Voices

Project approach is to consolidate advocacy within four countries by exposing regional partner consortium to mutual learning of good practices fromthe EU. Project invest in 20 grassroots NGOs and 100 professionals gaining intersectional, gender sensitive and gender budgeting capaci-ties by building specific advocacy action plans responding to GBV survivors vulnerabilities.

Background and Problem Statement

Laws, Policies, Regulations, and Institutional Practices: As of June 2024, 39 countries have ratified the Istanbul Convention (IC), committing to develop laws, policies, and support services to end violence against women. Of the four countries included in project, only Romania has ratified status, while Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia are among the six countries to have signed–but not ratified–the Convention. The Convention is predicated on the idea that no one organization can address gender based violence (GBV) alone–effective responses require coordinated action across governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders. Governments at the national and local levels need to be held accountable for devising and implementing holistic policies and measures for the prevention of, protection from, and prosecution of all forms of violence covered by the convention. Similarly, criminal justice responses lack specific measures to address each form of GBV and hate based crime.

Theory of Change

Theory of Change draws on the experience of a range of actors delivering programs and services addressing GBV, including donor agencies, women human rights defenders, women’s rights organizations and other civil society organizations .Out of the 7 principles regarding change theory we have focused our project intervention on the following two:

a)Women’s rights organizations create and sustain change: supporting women’s rights NGOs, especially those working to tackle GBV, to make change and build strong and inclusive social movements is the most effective mechanism for ensuring sustainable change in the lives of women and girls.

b) Holistic and multi-sectoral approaches are more likely to have impact: coordinated interventions operating at multiple levels, across sectors and over multiple time-frames are more likely to address the various aspects of, and therefore have greater impact on, tackling GBV.

Program Objectives

Objective 1: Local NGOs in Central Europe constructively engage with officials on rights-based, trauma-informed, and survivor-centered approaches to preventing and responding to GBV.

Objective 2: Local NGOs in project countries improve survivor-centered service delivery and uptake of GBV services