Hanoi (VNA) –🦄 A project launched in the central city of Da Nang has helped men understand the root causes of violence against women and join together to end violence against women and girls.

The male pioneers’ model of the “Community Mobilisation in Prevention and Response to Violence against Women and Girls” project in Da Nang has been scaled up in Ho Chi Minh City to become a pilot model to be widely shared at a large number of conferences in the Asia-Pacific region. The information was revealed during a conference to conclude the project for the 2017-2020 period in Da Nang on November 28, which was organised by the Women’s Union of Da Nang city and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also known as UN Women. The implementation of the project in Da Nang between 2018 and 2020 was joined by more than 8,000 people (40 percent of them are men) in 11 communes and wards of the city’s Hai Chau and Hoa Vang districts. Through behaviour and awareness-raising activities, men have played a pioneering role in the prevention of violence against women and girls. The project has been expedited with four main groups of activities, which are to sensitise communications and policy advocacy, build capacity for the community in violence prevention, formulate communication materials and carry out local activities in an attempt to mobilise people, especially men, to realise their internal strengths, the root causes of violence against women, to unite and join in the action to end all forms of violence against women and girls. After its implementation, the project’s lessons and successes have greatly contributed to promoting policies and programmes of Da Nang in a bid to put an end to violence against women and girls. The most apparent result was the fact that the Women's Union of Da Nang city advised the municipal Party Committee to issue Directive No. 39-CT/TU dated April 22, 2020 on “Building a safe Da Nang city free from violence against women and children”. This is the city’s commitment and an important legal basis for the Women's Union to continue performing synchronous solutions towards building a safe city - free from violence against women and girls as well as replicating the project to the whole city. Hoang Thi Thu Huong, President of the Da Nang Women’s Union, said that the union will maintain and replicate the project’s models to mobilise not only men but all people in the community to actively join in activities stopping violence against women and girls, contributing to the building of a safe Da Nang city free from violence against women and children. In her remarks, Elisa Fernandez Saenz, Country Representative of UN Women in Vietnam, spoke highly of the results brought by the project for Da Nang, as it has become a pilot model with concrete evidence of UN Women’s policy advocacy on gender-based violence prevention in Vietnam. In response to the 2020 National Action Month on Gender Equality and Violence Prevention and Control and a 16-day campaign calling for an end to gender-based violence, two icons of Da Nang city - the Dragon bridge and the Han river bridge - starting on the evening of November 28, will put on dazzling orange lights, as Da Nang's commitment to taking action to end violence against women and children, as well as building a safe city for everyone./.