The Mission of WAR is to promote gender equality, prevent and respond to gender based violence through public education, advocacy, research, and survivor support.
Dipolelo! Girls Against GBV
7 young women survivors of gender-based violence Together
they shared their experience of violence and over 3 months they narrated,
recorded and designed their videos to bring their stories to life.
My Father
A story of father-daughter incest. Her father asks her to keep a secret and his secret is to rape her. She keeps this secret until one day she gets the courage to tell her mother.
The Mountain
This young mother lives with her boyfriend and their baby girl. She didn’t attend Secondary School and is unemployed. Her boyfriend is working. They have been in a relationship for some time.
Who Do I Trust
Going out with a friend to a bar for some fun this young woman found herself being gang raped by four young men and then just when she thought she was safe she was raped again by her neighbour.
Out Of My Life
She loved him and he loved her back. Then he lost his job and she allowed him to move into her home. Things changed.
My Scars Remain
The storyteller is a young girl whose father physically abuses her, her siblings and her mother. He barely conceals his anger.
Unseen Wounds
The author has a cousin with a young baby who is in an abusive relationship. One evening she visited her cousin and while she was there, her cousin’s boyfriend became abusive.
The Thunderstorm
A wonderful man from church approached her and asked her to be his girlfriend. She was delighted and they had a wonderful time together.
Dipolelo is a Setswana word that means “stories”. Botswana has a long history of storytelling but this is the first digital storytelling project about gender-based violence. The aim of the project is for survivors to tell their own story in their own way rather than in the way required by police, social workers, teachers, nurses and other service providers.