Dear Partners,

Warm greetings and best wishes for a happy and healthy New Year.

As we reflect on the past year, we extend our sincere appreciation for your continued partnership, collaboration, and steadfast commitment to preventing violence against women and children while advancing gender equality. Your leadership and dedication often demonstrated in complex and challenging contexts have been central to the progress we have made together.

Our collective efforts in 2025 reaffirmed the power of shared vision, learning, and solidarity. Together, we have continued to challenge harmful social norms, elevate community voices, and advance evidence-informed approaches that contribute to meaningful and lasting social change.

As we look ahead to 2026, we do so with renewed resolve and a shared sense of responsibility, grounded in our deep appreciation for the partnerships that make this work possible. At a time when violence against women and children continues to undermine safety, dignity, and development, sustained commitment to prevention is more critical than ever.

We urge our partners to remain bold and unwavering in prioritizing and investing in violence prevention efforts. Together, through continued collaboration and leadership, we can drive lasting change and advance safer, more just, and equitable communities. We look forward to continuing our collaboration as we strive toward safer, more just, and equitable communities.

With gratitude and warm regards,

Raising Voices

Raising Voices successfully supported the establishment of the SASA! Together feminist-funded cohort in Mali and Burkina Faso, representing a significant step forward in strengthening feminist approaches to the prevention of violence against women (VAW) in Francophone West Africa. The initiative prioritized the identification and engagement of women’s rights organizations (WROs) with the potential to lead locally grounded, feminist-informed violence prevention efforts.

The call for expressions of interest generated substantial regional engagement, with more than 120 WROs submitting applications. Following a rigorous and transparent review process, eight organizations were shortlisted for in-depth engagement: FemiLead - Empowering women to become their best selves, FEDE, Association APSEF, and Association for the Progress and Defense of Women's Rights (APDF) in Mali, and Association TABITAL-LOBAL – Agir local, Penser global, Who We Are – IPBF, Association Pugsada - ADEP, and Association Todima The TODIMA association in Burkina Faso.

Subsequently, Raising Voices’ VAW Prevention Practice Department conducted due diligence visits that provided opportunities to build trust, engage in meaningful dialogue, and strengthen relationships with organizational leadership and the communities they serve. These engagements enabled a deeper understanding of each organization’s institutional strengths, feminist orientation, and readiness to lead transformative VAW prevention work.

With support from the IMS Foundation, an online orientation was conducted, partnership agreements were formalized, and initial flexible feminist funding was disbursed—establishing a strong foundation for the SASA! Together West Africa cohort to advance sustainable and impactful programming.

Following this process, four organizations were selected to lead the SASA! Together cohort in the region, positioning them to implement feminist-led, community-based violence prevention initiatives. This approach underscores Raising Voices’ commitment to locally led, transformative change, grounded in trust-based partnerships and sustained investment in women’s rights movements.

Raising Voices commemorated the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence in partnership with COFEM and implemented a dynamic social media campaign that amplified survivor voices, challenged harmful norms, and mobilized communities to take action against violence against women and girls (VAWG). The campaign went beyond awareness, serving as a call to action that emphasized collective responsibility in ending VAW.

Observed globally since 1991, the 16 Days of Activism runs annually from November 25 to December 10, uniting activists, civil society, governments, and institutions in the pursuit of justice, safety, and gender equality. Since 2004, the GBV Prevention Network has strengthened this movement by coordinating shared advocacy messages and amplifying feminist voices to influence policy and social change.

In 2025, our campaign was grounded in a transformative feminist vision that confronts intersecting crises such as climate change, conflict, digital violence, economic inequality, and rising anti-rights movements. Despite funding constraints and growing challenges, the campaign highlighted resilience, solidarity, and collective power within feminist networks.

To support coordinated action and amplify collective advocacy, 250 GBV Prevention Network Action and Advocacy Kits were distributed. The kits included posters, purple ribbons, advocacy guides, affirmation cards, conversation starters, and other materials designed to strengthen community engagement and enhance advocacy efforts. In parallel, a targeted social media campaign was implemented across the GBV Prevention Network’s digital platforms to extend reach, reinforce key messages, and promote sustained public engagement.

For more than 15 years, Raising Voices has implemented the Good School Toolkit (GST) in approximately 1,500 schools across Uganda to prevent violence against children (VAC). While this work has driven significant change within schools, our learning has underscored the need to strengthen prevention efforts beyond school settings to achieve broader and more sustainable community impact.

In response, Raising Voices has strategically shifted its focus toward engaging district-level systems and infrastructure. This approach seeks to institutionalize VAC prevention, promote coordinated multi-sectoral action, and ensure that prevention efforts are locally owned and sustained by government and community actors.

The GST team conducted district inception visits in 31 implementing districts to assess existing child protection structures, identify key stakeholders, and explore opportunities for collaboration. Engagements with district Community Development leadership provided valuable insights into local coordination mechanisms, and District Community Development Officers identified two potential Community Protagonists per district to champion and sustain prevention efforts.

Building on this foundation, Raising Voices facilitated 8 regional trainings, bringing together 115 community protagonists from diverse sectors, including Community Development, Probation, Village Health Teams, para-social work, and education. The trainings strengthened collaboration and enhanced participants’ capacity for community mobilization and non-violent discipline. Evaluation results showed notable improvements in knowledge (32% to 88%), confidence (77%), and motivation (91%), marking a significant step toward embedding VAC prevention within district systems across Uganda.

Raising Voices conducted her second round of the Rethink and Reenergize (R&R) processes which generated meaningful outcomes across Kampala, Zambia, Botswana, and Rwanda by convening feminist organizations and activists to strengthen collective action on the prevention of violence against women (VAW). These convenings created intentional spaces for reflection, learning, and strategy, enabling participants to deepen a shared feminist analysis of VAW rooted in lived realities and local contexts.

Across all locations, the R&R processes strengthened intergenerational collaboration and renewed alignment around movement-building priorities. Participants reaffirmed commitments to transformative feminist leadership grounded in accountability, solidarity, and justice, contributing to greater coherence and shared purpose within feminist organizing spaces. The convenings also provided an opportunity to assess progress against commitments made in earlier R&R cycles, identify persistent gaps, and translate collective learning into practical, forward-looking actions.

A critical outcome of the second-round engagements was strengthened attention to sustainability within feminist activism. By intentionally centering self and collective care as a political practice, participants reinforced collective resilience, mitigated burnout, and enhanced their capacity for long-term organizing. The processes further contributed to the establishment and strengthening of in-country feminist networks committed to ongoing coordination and collective action around a shared agenda. Together, these outcomes ensure that efforts to prevent VAW remain connected, resilient, and grounded in care as a source of feminist power.