Sheila Maingi, a 2nd year student in the Masters of Development Practice (MDP) program, conducted research in Gauteng Province, South Africa this past summer. She partnered with Gender Links for Equality and Justice, a Southern Africa based organization, in their ‘Sunrise Campaign’. The program seeks to empower women who are survivors of Gender Based Violence (GBV) with life skills, digital literacy skills and entrepreneurship training. Sheila assisted in conducting baseline project monitoring and assessment against findings from the pilot phase. She attended trainings, engaged in participatory observation, and collected interview and focus group data. The final report will be submitted to Gender Links to help facilitate program strengthening. Her research will contribute to the broader issue of mitigating the prevalence of GBV in the region. She presented her preliminary findings at the International Conference on Sustainable Development (ICSD) held at Columbia University this September.
While in South Africa Sheila also authored a chapter ‘Gender and Peacebuilding in Southern Africa’ for the ‘SADC 2017 Gender Barometer’ and got the opportunity to visit Swaziland and Zimbabwe for other work-related activities.
Sheila Maingi
MDP Program
smaingi@ufl.edu