Annually the Women’s Day is commemorated Globally, and Yes International Community of Women Living with HIV Eastern Africa does it differently each year for the community of Women living with HIV by awarding a Fighter, Intelligent, Empowered, Resilient, Courageous, excelling women living with HIV in their diversity in East Africa and have made a great contribution towards fighting HIV and AIDS which was in line with the International Women’s Day. In 2021, ICWEA launched the F.I.E.R.C.E. (Fighter, Intelligent, Empowered, Resilient, Courageous and Excelling) Awards. The Goal of the campaign is to Enhance the contribution of women and girl’s networks in the HIV response in the region.
ICWEA made a decision to recognize and celebrate the achievements made by women living with HIV after a distressing experience of the sudden demise of 2 great women living with HIV who had dedicated their lives in fighting for the lives of women and girls living with HIV in Kenya and in Rwanda who both served as Country Coordinators at the time of their deaths.
Unfortunately, ICWEA was not able to honor their great contribution and great work while the two were still alive. ICWEA would like to remember and celebrate the lives of women living with HIV at all levels who have made a positive change by being influencers or those that have given and are still giving leadership to our movement. “Movement Building is a process of organizing or helping to activate the will of people to work individually or as collectively towards a vision they all share.”
ICWEA will not wait for their demise to appreciate their work, but will recognize them and use their works, experience and knowledge to encourage others to thrive for the best.
The objective of the campaign is to:
- To motivate more young women leaders in their diversity to come-out and take up the leadership mantle to challenge stigma and discrimination and other social challenges they face as they become future leaders.
- To advocate for the mainstreaming of the campaign in networks of women and girls living with HIV
- To strengthen feminism and women movement building beyond boarders
The Campaign will be run annually as a strong social mobilization tool to sustain the momentum for women movement building and as for this year, the campaign and theme rime with the Global IWD theme for International Women’s Day, for 2022 (IWD 2022) is, “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”, help forge a gender equal world.
The campaign is closely linked to the SDG 10 and Global AIDS strategy 2021- 2026: Its linked to the Result Area 6 of HIB Global strategy: Women and girls, men and boys, in all their diversity, practice and promote gender-equitable social norms and gender equality, and work together to end gender-based violence and to mitigate the risk and impact of HIV. It recognizes that Gender inequality is a key driver of the AIDS epidemic.
Note: The People coming in to participate is Chairman Board ICWEA from Burundi.
