EWLA assists women, particularly disadvantaged women, who are victims of gender-based violence.
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EWLA legal aid service is provided by 16 employees and 300 hundred volunteers.
Public Education: A key element in the enjoyment of rights is being aware of those rights and having the self-confidence to assert them. Those who are unaware of their rights are unlikely to demand them and Ethiopian women have often been kept unaware of their basic human rights for so long. Ethiopian women are taught to accept inferiority to their male counterparts, and to believe that they have fewer rights and less capacity. To be able to effectively challenge the denial of rights, they need to challenge and reject the self- views of weakness and lack of capacity that constrain them. Awareness of their rights through education is one of the main methods that can be carried out to solve this problem. Awareness over women’s rights shall not target only women but shall also focus on strategies that create awareness over the community at large since community awareness helps for prevention of violation of women’s rights. It shall not be forgotten that community members can play great roles as duty bearers.
The public education program plays an important role in disseminating information on issues affecting women via workshops, training’s, publications, radio transmissions and print media to various target groups. The recipients of the training’s, seminars and workshops range from criminal justice agencies such as police, public prosecutors and judges to people at the grass root level including students and workers of different organizations, people in the capital city as well as the regions.
EWLA has a legacy of providing public education on women’s rights and laws on violence against women. The most frequently employed methods of educating the public on these issues include electronic media like radio & T.V, press media, periodic magazines, journals, brochures, etc. Berchi Radio Program is one of the known educational radio series that has been going on for years. Other means of educating the public are organizing public education workshops for target groups in different areas, and organizing discussion forums for community members, etc. So far, over 80,000 women and men participated in such workshops directly. It is believed that over 8,000,000 people have been reached indirectly through different educational media programs.
The public awareness programs conducted by EWLA are believed to produce a society less tolerant of any gender-based violence perpetrated against women. Women have become assertive and able to take their rights forward.
The recipients of capacity building trainings, seminars and workshops range from criminal justice agencies such as police, public prosecutors and judges to service providers and people at the grass root level including students and workers of different organizations, people in the capital city as well as the regions.
The effort has contributed to the enhancement of gender sensitivity in the handling of women’s issues and in the creation of systems to address the issue.
As capacitating women and girls so as to enhance their knowledge in relation to court litigation is found to be crucial in securing their rights through the legal process, EWLA has started to provide self-representation skill development training to women and girls who have cases at hand or those with issues on the verge of turning to legal matters.
