Gaza - Community Media Center

In this report, we share with you excerpts about the most prominent activities and events carried out by the CMC as part of the global campaign to celebrate International Women’s Day 2023, which carried the slogan "Digitally Engaging Everyone: Innovation and Technology to Achieve Gender Equality", where CMC focused its work During its campaign, it focused on combating violence and digital discrimination against women and girls, especially digital violence against women human rights defenders, workers and activists in human rights and community work, as well as facilitating access for women subjected to violence to multi-sectoral services provided by institutions, in addition to promoting community awareness about women’s rights and existing gender violence, and addressing the reality and issues of Palestinian women.

Women’s Stories Book: A documentary book issued by the CMC, which includes 30 journalistic stories of women and girls who are victims and survivors of violence, living in various governorates of the Gaza Strip, and each story is like a message addressed to two parties, the first party: women and girls themselves, in order to benefit from the experiences of some of them and how they can adapt the circumstances and combat the violence that befell them. As for the second party: the decision makers, as a call documented by evidence for the need to find a real deterrent to the perpetrators of violence. A group of journalists participating in the CMC projects contributed to the book Stories for Women, where they were trained and developed their skills so that they are now fluent in media coverage from a human rights and gender perspective.

#Protection, A Rights Campaign: In early March 2023, the CMC launched a media campaign under the slogan “We continue against violence and gender-based discrimination towards women and girls in the digital space – protection is a right.” CMC produced and published a series of media and digital materials aimed at educating women and girls about their rights to a safe and effective digital presence, as well as improving the behavior and practices of women and girls during their presence in the digital space to reduce the risk of exposure to cybercrime, in addition to calling for the involvement of all parties related to the digital rights of women and girls in particular in order to strengthen their role in guiding women and girls through their online presence.

"Online Privacy Protection" Session: The CMC organized an interactive digital session on protecting online privacy and social media platforms for women and girls. The session was moderated by journalist and media and digital security specialist, Sultan Nasser. Safety and privacy on social media, the use of the internet, how to respond when exposed to any electronic crime, and the mechanisms of reporting it to the competent authorities.

Paper: "Innovation and Technology for the Achievement of Gender Equality," within the International Women’s Day celebration organized by a group of United Nations agencies at the UNESCO headquarters. Andalib Adwan, Founder and Director of the CMC, published a research paper on “Innovation and Technology to Achieve Gender Equality”, and talked about the importance of addressing digital violence towards women and girls. She succeeded in investing technology to achieve gender equality, and referred to the Digital Safety Guide issued by the Center to promote awareness about digital safety concepts and practices while using the internet.

Paper: "Gender-Based Disinformation." The CMC presented a working paper in the workshop held by the Gaza Mental Health Program entitled "Women’s Mental Health in Digital Space", where Basma Al-Kurd, media coordinator at the center, presented a research paper on disinformation based on gender, and discussed cases of gender misinformation in the local media, in addition to discussing the possibility of confronting it. The paper included a presentation on the Masaahatuna application, which was issued by the CMC in partnership with Terre des hommes in Jordan and Palestine, with the aim of facilitating the access of women and girls subjected to violence to the multisectoral services provided by the institutions operating in the Gaza Strip easily, quickly, and safely.

Evaluation of the International Women’s Day Hackathon: The Community Media Center, represented by its founder and director, Ms. Nightingale Adwan, contributed to the evaluation of the qualitative ideas presented by the participating teams in the digital hackathon organized by the United Nations Women’s Authority in partnership with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights as part of the #InternationalWomensDay_2023 campaign. The hackathon targeted 40 young men and women from Gaza and the West Bank to present their ideas and creative solutions that seek to achieve gender equality in Palestine.

Play Performances: The CMC organized 22 performances of Reham’s play in a number of UNRWA and private schools, with the participation of about 4,000 people, with the aim of promoting a culture of women’s rights, gender equality and combating discrimination among children of both sexes. In addition to organizing film screenings (The Bride and the Bus Driver) in cooperation with the Street Cinema team at the Hollist Cultural Center in eastern Gaza.

Digital rights and electronic violence: CMC, in partnership with a number of civil organizations partnering in the Sawasya program, held a series of awareness workshops on digital rights and protection from electronic violence. The meetings targeted women, men, and youth of both sexes, from all governorates of the Gaza Strip. It was facilitated by a group of lawyers and media professionals participating in the project.

Women’s rights and gender-based violence: The CMC held a series of awareness workshops on "women’s rights and protection from gender-based violence" in all governorates of the Gaza Strip, with the participation of a number of women and men, in parallel holding a series of meetings according to the peer education approach ( From young man to young man) with the aim of improving awareness among young people of both sexes regarding women’s rights and violence against them. It was run by a group of lawyers and media professionals participating in the Community Media Center projects.

Here, the CMC concludes its activities within the framework of International Women’s Day 2023, and we continue to hope and work continuously in supporting and advocating for the rights and issues of marginalized groups, especially women and youth, and we will soon celebrate the anniversary of the launch of the “Masahatuna” application. This work comes as an extension of the work of the CMC for more than 15 years in developing the role of the media in dealing with societal issues and promoting the values of democracy.