Women of Africa wont be beaten: addressing gender violence through health promotion.

This paper describes the joint initiative of the Soul City Institute for Health and Development Communication project and the National Network on Violence Against Women (NNVAW). The Soul City is a nongovernmental organization that harnesses the power of the media for social change. Through the popular edutainment the project uses a mixture of prime time television and radio dramas in synergy with print material to stimulate constructive dialogue inform the public and shift social norms and practices around key health and development concerns. Guided by formative research which identified both individual and structural barriers to change the project has used the five pillars of health promotion as outlined in the Ottawa Charter as a framework for the development of a comprehensive campaign. Accordingly the campaign moves beyond the traditional focus of healthy education on individual behavior change to target a mixture of healthy public policy community action personal skills development and reorientation of major sectors including the health services to create a supportive environment for change. An innovative partnership with NNVAW was forged to strengthen this campaign.