Resolving the Collective Action Problem of Violence Against Women and Children in Shinyanga District, Tanzania with the Women Fund Tanzania Trust

From 2021 - 2023, C4C partnered with Women Fund Tanzania Trust to identify, engage with, and learn how people in Shinyanga district, Tanzania resolve the collective action problem of violence against women and children.

Learn more about the thinking behind this vital project and our partnership with WFT-T and how C4C uses Theory U to enable people to identify their blindspots in relation to violence, understand the system in which violence arises and generate their own solutions.

This 2 year action research project involved:

Mapping highly connected individuals; enabling us to understand people’s help-seeking behaviours and relationships.

Interviewing government officials and local leaders to understand how much urgency for change they felt.

Facilitating dialogue with over 900 women, children, men and government officials to explore how they make sense of the system in which violence arises.

Re-imagining peaceful communities with over 80 highly connected citizens “our backbone” - envisaging a future where women and children are able to thrive. We developed a set of low effort, no-cost actions - or prototypes - to #ENDviolence against women and children.

RESEARCH DESIGN

pre-production

research products

our prototypes

Check out the prototypes that communities are now putting into action in order to spread protective norms.

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Tracking change in how communities prevent violence against women and children in Shinyanga, Tanzania

read the final report

Resolving the Collective Action Problem of Violence Against Women and Children in Shinyanga District, Tanzania.

Full Report (ENG)

learn more

See our notes from the initial planning stages of the project.

Take a look at preparations for our prototyping event recently held in Shinyanga.

Read Raphael’s blog on his experience facilitating his first large scale event.

What does Presencing look like? Take a look at our group meditation.

Understand the Co-sensing Stage of Theory U.

Where will this research take us? Read our Informing the NPA-VAWC Review.

Read Dr McApline's chapter in Fielding Monograph's publication Driving Social Innovation: How Unexpected Leadership is Transforming Society.

See below for our photo gallery of participants coming together to reflect on how to resolve the dilemmas that a patriarchal society creates for communal peace.

research in action