SERENDIPITY: Solidarity with Women Stand Up Againts Sexual Harassment for Equality

Women empowerment is defined as the condition where women have the ability to make their own decision and have the rights to make changes in the society for themselves and others. Women empowerment has been brought up to the surface of society’s discussion for quite some time. However, society still maintains the stigma about it, such as regarding gender position, which is mostly dominated by men. On the other hand, the gender-based violence rate is still overwhelming, based on data from World Health Organization (WHO) that stated around one in three women have experienced gender-based violence, both mentally and physically in their life. Therefore, in order to empower women, SCORA and SCORP CIMSA UGM held “SERENDIPITY: Solidarity with Women Stand Up Against Sexual Harassment for Equality”. SERENDIPITY itself consists of 5 main events, which are pre-project training (PPT), self-defense training (SDT), ground campaign, 3 days education and Yayasan Rumah Impian Indonesia (YRII) visitation.

In collaboration with PETRA, PPT was held on April 2, 2022, which was attended by the organizing committees in order to prepare them for a series of the next SERENDIPITY’s events. They learn more about the topic of women empowerment through presentation, movie discussion, and focus group discussion.

Moreover, SERENDIPITY also held SDT on April 7, 2022, in which we collaborated with UGM’s karate activity unit. Our main objective is to prepare the organizing committees with knowledge of self-defense in order to train the YRII children.

One of two SERENDIPITY’s peak events was the ground campaign that was held in Alun-Alun Kidul Yogyakarta on April 9, 2022. This campaign utilized a booth for education with some organizing committees roaming around the city hall to give information for the people in there. At this ground campaign, we got the opportunity to advocate and educate 24 groups of people. The ground campaign then was followed by 3 days education that was held from April 10, 2022, until April 12, 2022. The 3 days education consists of twitter thread and myth or fact on Instagram about sexual harassment on the first and the second day, and an after movie of self-defense training on the third day.

Last but not least, SERENDIPITY held a social action to YRII where the organizing committees educate the children regarding women empowerment and sexual harassment on April 16, 2022. We also held a session called color expression where the children could express their feelings through color.