By Yang Ater Yang
Lakes State’s Director General in the ministry of gender and child welfare, Peter Gum Ater urges youth to approach challenging situations without indulging into gender violence.
“In our society we believe men are overall better than women and woman is considered a second person. I’m happy that the issue of gender inequality and gender equality is addressed,” he said.
The director general was speaking during a training organized by Oxfam GV targeting over sixty youth as gender champions in Rumbek East County of lakes state.
Participants for the gender Champion training were selected from 3 different payams of Jiir, Amongpiny and Matangai of Rumbek Central County.
The director general said when women and men can equally achieve in development equally when given equal opportunities.
“This is one of the reasons you are trained as gender champions so that you can engage all the sectors, including women,” the director general stated.
He stressed that there is need for the organized forces to empower women and involve them in leadership positions.
“We are still to engage the organized forces so that women should come to the high rank and the institutions should also come to managerial positions “, he said.
According to Ater, those who were trained and equipped should talk to the community on gender issues to reduce gender-based violence cases and ensure peace among the youth.
Oxfam GV’s gender and protection officer based in Rumbek, Jok Mading said implements different projects in Lakes State, including good governance.
She said the youth were engaged in gender and protection aspect of the organization’s project scope.
“We trained youth as gender champion to challenge gender inequalities in the community and also negative cultural norms that are harmful to people,” she said.
Mading said that both female and male youth are trained raise awareness on gender equality in the community.
“We trained them on girls’ action learning system, give tools like gender box and file sorting to encourage positive participation in the community and to end gender negative norms and discrimination,” she stressed.
She said after training on girls and youth session, the trainees are enrolled out on peer-to-peer groups to extend awareness on promotion of gender equality to others in the community.
“We expect youth to promote gender inequalities and change attitudes toward negative norms and practices by engaging each through peer-to-peer mobilization “, she said.
Mading said that Oxfam expect the youth to understand equal power relations and structure contributed to gender inequalities.
She added that the youth should take the sole responsibility to change and promote equal power relations on both male and female.