Every year, from 25 November to 10 December, we join the international 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence. Our way of marking it is radio: episodes built from women’s own accounts, with specialists answering the questions those accounts raise, and a closing moment with the groups we accompany.
This is our story archive for the programme. For what the programme is, see Communication & Media.
2024: a series on the violence women live with
For the 2024 campaign we ran a special Umukenyezi Iwacu series on community radio in Rumonge, Cibitoke, Gitega and Ngozi, with episodes on domestic violence, abandonment within a relationship, widows and family property, the weight of a birth outside marriage, property after divorce, land conflicts and informal unions. Each episode gave women from different provinces the floor and brought in a legal specialist to say what the law provides.
- 27 November to 5 December 2024 · Umukenyezi Iwacu radio series for the 16 Days of Activism
2025: the Yoooo campaign
In 2025 we ran our own campaign under the name Yoooo (Gutabaza). Four numbered episodes went to Iteka FM, RFM, Ejo Heza FM and Indundi Culture. The first, on 25 November, opened with a survivor’s testimony and specialist guidance on how to support and protect people affected by violence. Later episodes addressed economic violence, forced marriage and sexual violence against a young woman with albinism.
The campaign closed on 9 December with women from Runtown Ladies and Baho Urwize. Participants listened to the episodes together, discussed them with the specialists who had taken part, and shared their own testimonies. They asked for the campaign to continue through the year and to reach every province, and they wrote on a shared wall the harms they no longer want to see.
- 25 November to 9 December 2025 · Yoooo campaign brought survivor-centred conversations to radio
Reporting on the campaign beyond our own episodes
The programme also follows the national conversation. In March 2026 UBUTUMWA carried women’s own messages on their rights, and in June 2026 we opened a series on women’s role in reconciliatory justice, social cohesion and peacebuilding.
- 8 March 2026 · UBUTUMWA shares women’s messages on their rights
- June 2026 · Ingiro invites listeners to a series on women and reconciliatory justice
What we have learned from running it
Three things come back every year. Women want the episodes to continue beyond the sixteen days. They want the specialists to stay in the conversation, not only to appear once. And they want the groups to meet in person, not only to listen on the radio. Each year’s campaign has been built a little more around those three requests.
