Communities Care Initiative

Humanitarian emergencies often exacerbate the risk of gender-based violence (GBV), including sexual violence (SV) and intimate partner violence (IPV), yet programming for gender-based violence prevention and response is often limited. Survivors of gender-based violence are often unable to access lifesaving, time-sensitive care, including emergency contraception and medication to prevent HIV after possible exposure. Over the past 15 years, the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) has worked to bolster prevention and response programming for GBV in humanitarian settings using innovative approaches to support survivors and their communities.

In Uganda and Colombia, the Women’s Refugee Commission and our partners are training community health workers in refugee and host communities to raise awareness about gender-based violence and the benefits of seeking care, and to connect survivors with services in their community.

The “Communities Care: Transforming Lives and Prevention Violence” program is a comprehensive package of community-based interventions to prevent and respond to GBV, in humanitarian settings, including a toolkit to train community health workers (CHWs) to provide clinical care and referrals for survivors, and community sensitization programming to promote care-seeking for GBV survivors.

In 2021, WRC, alongside implementing partners Profamilia and Reproductive Health Uganda and research partners Universidad de los Andes and Makerere University School of Public Health, launched a pilot project to implement and evaluate the safety, feasibility, and efficacy of community-based clinical care for SV survivors in refugee and host communities in Colombia and Uganda.