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INTERNATIONAL
egy that focuses on the fields of sexual and reproductive health and rights. This ap- proach points out the causes of discrimina- tion and violence against women and pro- vides solutions for abandoning them in a very concrete and large-scaled way.
The MDG 3 – “Gender Equality” – was a key goal for succeeding to implement other MDGs, (...) and SD-Goal 5 associ- ates together with Goal 3, Goal 4, Goal 1, Goal 16 and Goal 17.
So the VCA provides solutions for several questions that are on the global agenda.
Its focus is education/training/school- ing – in terms of: Transformation of Educa- tion and Education for Transformation, as it is said in the Beijing platform for action.
It trains men and women in gender sen- sitization and enables first of all men and then women to behave in a way that leads to abandonment of discrimination and vi- olence against women, and in the same way leads to abandonment of traditional health practices, like FGM.
The VCA promotes human resources in general and individually by raising new questions based on innovative scientific findings in the field of gender issues. This motivates the participants of VCA teaching units to look for the correlation in their own lives and to reflect their thinking, feeling and behavior in a very new way concerning gender based questions
Our solution, the VCA, reveals to be an innovative scientific teaching methodolo- gy which can be implemented in teaching units for all generations/for people of all cultures, all levels, in all fields.
Education/training/schooling with the goal to bring about behavior change on a large scale needs teachers (both male and fe- male), educators, counselors, who are ex- perts in this field.
Therefore the founder and scientist Muth- gard Hinkelmann-Toewe has established further education studies to qualify social workers, teachers, economists (a.o.) to ex- perts in the Value-Centered Approach, to Gender Experts/Anti FGM Experts with
focus on sexual and reproductive health and rights.
In other words: the VCA addresses the question, how to get gender-based violent behavior out of partnership / marriage / family (and other relationships) on a large scale and instead let loveful / caring / re- sponsive / peaceful behavior “flow in”, es- pecially in the interaction from men towards women.
Change – behavior change – that is sup- posed to sustainably improve living condi- tions on a large scale (division-/district- /community-wide) needs education and training. So the Pontifex Franciscus in the latest Encyclical Letter – that about the “Planet”(dated May 2015). (Encyclical Let- ter, ... On care for our common home) (...)
By using the VCA, education/training/ schooling makes men and women take in- terest in behavior change and effects in changes that improve the living conditions of women. (...)
In just a few years, applying the VCA ap- proach has led not just to a substantial de- cline in violence against women, but also to the end of FGM among the Kisii people, who have one of the highest rates of FGM intheworld,at96%–asnotedandde- scribed in the UNICEF Research Centre’s international study The Dynamics of Social Change – Towards the Abandonment of FGM/C in Five African Countries, which includes the FULDA-MOSOCHO-PROJ- ECT for Kenya, an area of 100 square km home to more than 130,000 people (www.fulda-mosocho-project.com), among the five best anti-FGM projects in the world. (...)
To date, more than 25,000 girls in the Kisii region have been permanently protect- ed from FGM.
Hundreds and indeed thousands of men and women at all levels of society and from all relevant target groups have received training in the VCA. There is a great de- mand for VCA seminars, which have brought about socio-cultural change in the population, to the extent that Kisii men in the project region have been able to aban-
Gemeindeversammlung mit der deutschen Anti- FGM-Expertin Kerstin Hesse, Marani/Kenia (11.09.2015) und Kissii-South (17.09.2015)
don their abusive behavior towards women with dignity. “A New Growth in Our Kisii Culture” has occurred, in which FGM has been replaced by respect for the human rights of women and girls, by valuating women and their bodies and by treating women as equal partners. (...)
It is relevant for teachers and communi- ty leaders world wide to accelerate the im- plementation of equal rights for women and
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