The Vise Versa Global Festival geared in creating awareness and solutions around ending Gender Based Violence .
The festival went down at the design hub on the 6th street in Bugolobi and it was kicked off with an exhibition from different partners like She Leads, Right here Right now , Alive Medical Services , Power To Youth , Mondiaal , Mci Radio .
The sessions were set off with a set of panelists that was moderated by Andrew Kyamagero and the discussion was drawn from a screening a GBV story from Linnet that was a story about her abusive partner who poured acid on her because she had chosen to break up with him.
Many reasons were raised to why women face gender based violence and one of the concerns was that women don’t speak out when they see violent men until they do more worse things .
The other concern from the panel discussion was that the police that should be protecting the the women don’t actually know the law and they always provide wrong sections as well as tell the women to solve family issues with their partners not bring them to police .
The event was also driven with a youthful exuberance , the presence of the live band and live thematically performances like poets from Echo minds ladies who believe that silence is the real reason for the increase in gender based violence “GBV silence is violence.”
“Women have been the main reasons why their fellow women are facing gender based violence because they teach patriarchy to their children from a young age and they grow up with a different setting of how to treat men which makes them even fear reporting after their rights being violated .”Echo minds poets .
Following that was a self defense training from Hellen Baleke who believes that women can defend themselves from men who want to take advantage of them and this was through boxing classes . and she further informed us that she would be accessible whenever a lady needs to be trained .
There were also a couple of productions of short movies about the gender based violence acts in communities for example ; Bedroom chains by Hassan Mageya , Bed of Thorns by Nabwiso Eleanor , Stain by Morris Mugisha among others .
Rewarded with certificates were the partners or supporters that collaborated with the vice versa Global to organise a sucessful festival .
It was a beautiful and massive experience and we wish to have and be part of many vice versa festivals so that we can fight against gender based violence in uganda and the whole world at a large .
