Gashbun Organization in Partnership with International Council of Voluntary Agency ICVA
PSEA Outreach fund granted Gashbun NGO with a fund to implement a project on protection from sexual exploitation and abuse PSEA,
Gashbun Organization for Guidance and Psychosocial Counselling (G.O.G.P.C.), Please open Iraq Interagency PSEA Outreach Fund 2023 Project Summaries
The PSEA Outreach Fund was established in 2020 as a deliverable of the High Commissioner’s IASC Championship on Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) and Sexual Harassment (September 2019 to December 2020). A joint initiative of UNHCR and the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA), the Fund supports the critical work of NGOs in preventing sexual exploitation and abuse by ensuring all affected people know that humanitarian assistance is never conditional on transactions or exchanges of any kind. Moreover, the Fund invests in community-led efforts to ensure that communities and SEA survivors know how and where to safely report allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation. Since its launch, the Fund has been met with immense interest, with over 5,000 applications received from NGOs worldwide in the four rounds since it was established. All eligible applications are reviewed and scored by an interagency steering group of PSEA experts, which in 2023 include representatives from IOM, UNICEF, Care International, CHS Alliance and World Vision International, as well as ICVA and UNHCR.
In the first three rounds of the Fund (2020-2022), awards were made to 49 projects to help NGOs reinforce PSEA through strengthened community awareness and engagement. Over 60 types of material have been developed so far, including, among others, print, audio, video, community discussion guides, workshops and trainings, available in over 50 languages and tailored to reach over 20 different Age, Gender, Diversity (AGD) profiles. All materials are available to all freely and in editable formats. In 2023, an additional 7 grants were awarded to projects in most regions. These projects, summarized below, aimed to strengthen engagement with key groups such as adolescent girls, language minorities, persons with disabilities, persons of diverse sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI), people in geographically isolated areas and communities where risks of transactional sex are known to be high. All selected projects have received technical support and advice from the interagency steering group in developing their respective initiatives the NGO developed 100 booklets and 100 flyers in Nuer and English on PSEA core concepts and SEA complaint and feedback mechanisms which were distributed during 3 awareness raising campaigns to 800 members of affected communities. In addition, GCAF conducted 5 radio talk shows which enabled a wider coverage of the PSEA messaging developed. Lastly, the NGO also conducted 3 community engagement dialogues with 30 community leaders and organized 10 training sessions for 30 community leaders on PSEA, protection risks, mitigation measures, and referral pathways.
Gashbun NGO Story with ICVA
In the Duhok governorate, Gashbun Organization organized awareness group sessions and campaigns in public places to increase awareness on PSEA of more than 2’000 persons from refugee, IDP and host communities and 20 community leaders. The NGO developed posters and leaflets in English, Arabic and Kurdish on PSEA and available reporting channels. A documentary film in Arabic was also produced to further strengthen awareness raising on PSEA. In addition, the NGO conducted 9 PSEA trainings for 175/65 humanitarian workers from local NGOs and Community-based organizations on core PSEA concepts, reporting mechanisms and referral pathways and coordinated with 10/12 local NGOs to establish a local PSEA taskforce.