Shooting Touch Rwanda Raise Awareness About Gender-Based Violence

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Shooting Touch Rwanda is one of the FIBA Foundation's Supported Projects and was selected to receive equipment in order to enhance their activities.

NYAMIRAMA SECTOR, KAYONZA DISTRICT , (Rwanda) – In collaboration with Kayonza District and Nyamirama Health Center, Shooting Touch Rwanda (STR) held its first basketball tournament in over two years on Saturday, 26 February.

The event utilized the mobilizing power of basketball to promote community sensitivity around the issue of gender-based violence (GBV) in Rwanda, while also promoting physical health, mental wellness, and gender equality. Additionally, 15 local nurses provided noncommunicable diseases (NCD) health screenings for up to 500 men and women over 35 years of age, and dozens of individuals, including children above the age of 12, received COVID-19 vaccine shots.

“Our goal at Shooting Touch is to use the sport of basketball as a tool for improved health and social change in Rwanda,” said Chloe Rothman, Shooting Touch’s Director of Programming. “Gender-based violence remains a major issue in our communities, and we have even seen rates increase during the pandemic. Now that basketball is back, we’re eager to use this mobilizing platform to address GBV and help make Rwanda a safer place for women and children.”

The tournament included basketball games featuring young children, teenage boys, teenage girls, and adult women. Led by Shooting Touch Rwanda’s team of local coaches, more than 60 youth and women took part in competitive basketball games and gained valuable knowledge related to health and gender equity, alongside nearly a thousand community members in attendance.

Gender-based violence in Rwanda is a complex issue rooted in patriarchy, which itself is enshrined in long-standing cultural notions, supported by various social conditions that uphold unequal gender norms and power relations. In the fight against GBV, prevention remains the best medicine. Sensitization must start from a young age within families, schools, and communities to promote values of gender equality while challenging derogating gender roles. With this in mind, STR invited guests from several partner organizations to speak on the topic in between basketball games.

One of these special guests was Jeane Bayera, Director of the Nyamirama Health Center and an expert in public health and NCDs. Bayera gave a speech discussing the value of sport as a mobilizing force for health and highlighted the resources available for victims of violence and abuse.

“We thank our partner Shooting Touch for this GBV Awareness event, where people in our community get tested for NCDs and our girls and women break gender norms by playing basketball,” Bayera said. “Out here, there are many stereotypes about women and girls, and they experience physical, verbal, and sexual abuse, but few of those cases are reported; we urge everyone to report any abuse - we have to speak out and fight against gender-based violence.”

Basketball is at the heart of Shooting Touch Rwanda’s programs, but the organization’s reach goes well beyond sport. By increasing access to sports, leadership development opportunities, health and female empowerment courses, girls and women are educated and inspired to use their voices to speak up against injustice - while boys and men are provided with the knowledge and resources they need to assist in the push for equality.

“At Shooting Touch, we as boys are taught that abuse occurs in many forms - sexual, physical, and mental,” said Bishimo Confiance, one of the Shooting Touch U18 boys who played in the tournament. “We learn to protect ourselves and the girls in our communities, and report cases of abuse as soon as we see them."