Objective:
Preventing gender-based violence and child abuse through education and awareness creation.
Target Group:
Project WAVE (Working Against Violence through Education) is a long-term initiative, combating gender-based violence and child abuse through education and awareness creation, commencing with the employees of the John Keells Group and designed to progressively encompass various vulnerable communities associated with the Group’s business locations and the general public.
Impact (as at 30th June 2017):
Since the launch of the project in November 2014, the awareness sessions have been conducted in all sectors of the John Keells Group including including Head Office, Leisure, Consumer Foods & Retail, IT, Transportation and Financial Services. More than 12,295 employees have directly benefitted with an estimated indirect impact (through sharing knowledge with peers and family) of more than 49,180. External sessions were also conducted for 4,822 persons including members of the Sri Lanka Bar Association, Police officers in Kalutara and Colombo, School children, University students, and Police officers at the Women’s and Child’s desk team in Puthukkudiyiruppu, Mullaitivu.
WAVE awareness programme targets four key aspects – prevention through education, training, intervention and public campaigns and advocacy. The first phase of WAVE predominantly focused on prevention through education, and campaigning & advocacy. During JKF's first public awareness campaign held on 25th November 2016 to coincide with International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. 30,000 information cards were distributed to commuters, bus conductors, bus drivers and the general public while 1,150 buses had stickers pasted in Sinhala and Tamil with information on sexual harassment being a criminal offense and the helpline for reporting sexual harassment incidents.