#ImamsForShe in Rwanda
In Rwanda, #ImamsForShe has been operating with the partnership of AICNDH since 2019, when the initiative spread from Burundi to two neighboring countries - Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the few years since the expansion, #ClubsForShe overnight camps, education workshops for women and girls, and information workshops for Imams and other religious leaders have been held to promote the mission of #ImamsForShe.
THIS PROGRAMMING IS MADE POSSIBLE WITH SUPPORT FROM WALLACE GLOBAL FUND
2020 Highlights
2019 Highlights
#Imamsforshe educational workshops
#ImamsForShe Educational Workshops help to empower leaders and change-makers in Muslim communities across the world to oppose misogynistic teachings and practices. A number of informational workshops have been hold since the start of #ImamsForShe in Rwanda, targeted at scholars, Imams, and religious leaders with the intention of promoting respectful and egalitarian relations between men and women in the country. In 2020, over a three day period, a group of 30 individuals made up of religious leaders and female representatives from the community. This specific workshop, featured in the gallery below, raised awareness on practices and values that promote positive masculinity.
#clubsforshe
Launched in 2017 in Burundi, #ClubsForShe are sports camps for young women and girls, run by AICNDH. The camps serve as safe spaces where participants talk about their experiences, lives and aspiration. In this safe space, participants learn about their rights from #ImamsForShe champions, who base their curriculum off of the Qur’an, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The goal of the camps is to sensitize girls to their rights as encoded in international law so that they can defend them against religious teachings and communal practices that seek to undermine women’s dignity and rights. By teach women and young girls to stand up for their own rights, #ClubsForShe is designed to defend women’s rights across #ImamsForShe communities.
In Rwanda, more than 90 girls have benefited from #ClubsForShe with the most recent camp held in May 2020 in Cumba, Rwanda. At the camp the young women participated in discussions about their sexual health and reproductive and economic rights. They also attended training workshops on entrepreneurship, which included lesson on personal financing, money management, and designing business plans.
Community Imams in Rwanda were also invited to join and after participating, committed to promoting women’s rights and access to family planning and reproductive freedom in their talks at their mosques.
Khoutbahs
Across Rwanda, #ImamsForShe Imams given Khoutbahs, or Friday sermons, to mixed gender audiences at seven mosques across the Western Province. These sermons covered a number of different topics, including women’s rights in Islam, forced marriages, family planning, and girls education. Nearly 900 individuals, including 669 men and 191 women were present for these lectures. A full breakdown of the congregation make up and a complete list of subjects covered in the Khoutbahs is below.
