The SASA! Approach
SASA! is a new methodology for addressing the link between violence against women and HIV/AIDS. Documented in a user-friendly Activist Kit, it is meant to inspire, enable and structure effective community mobilization to prevent violence against women and HIV/AIDS.
SASA! is an exploration of power—what it is, who has it, how it is used, how it is abused and how power dynamics between women and men can change for the better. SASA! demonstrates how understanding power and its effects can help us prevent violence against women and HIV/AIDS.
Until now we have allowed community norms to portray men as more valuable than women and more powerful than women. SASA! is about mobilizing the community to change these norms, because they lead to violence and HIV/AIDS. SASA! recognizes that all people are equal in worth and value. SASA! shows us how a balance of power between women and men means healthier lives for everyone.
Power can be positive or negative. Positive power means feeling the power within ourselves, the power of joining with others, the power to create change. Negative power means wealthy people having power over poor people, the educated over the less educated, one ethnic group over another, and, in most communities, men having power over women. Negative power is so common that it often goes unquestioned.
Many times, power is thought of as limited. We often think that some people can and should have power and others cannot. Many men fear that they will lose power if women gain power. This is faulty thinking. Women and men can and should be able to exercise their own power—hold their own beliefs, make their own decisions, express themselves as they prefer, become what they want to become—as long as this does not include using their power over another person. By changing the imbalance of power between women and men, we can prevent violence against women and its connection to HIV/AIDS.
The SASA! Process
SASA! is a Kiswahili word for “now!” and also serves as an acronym for the major phases of the program. These phases scale up the Stages of Change to phases of community mobilization.
Start
Start thinking about violence against women and HIV/AIDS as interconnected issues and foster power within yourself to address these issues.
Awareness
Raise awareness about how our communities accept men’s use of power over women, fueling the dual pandemics of violence against women and HIV/AIDS.
Support
Support the women, men and activists directly affected by or involved in these interconnected issues, by joining your power with others’.
Action
Take action. Use your power to prevent violence against women and HIV/AIDS.
The SASA! Strategies
SASA! uses four strategies: local activism, media and advocacy, communication materials and training to reach a variety of people in a variety of ways.
Monitoring and Assessment
SASA! includes a variety of monitoring tools to help organizations assess and reflect on their efforts in the community. The tools, designed for activist organizations are simple yet provide meaningful information to feedback into program design to make SASA! implementation stronger and more effective.
Download SASA!
[Click here] to read a Case Study of SASA!
Other SASA! links:
