Combating Gender Based Violence Program Womens Affairs Center (WAC) was established in 1991 by a group of activist and professional women to promote women's rights and gender equality within the Palestinian society via empowering and enhancing women abilities in a range of non-traditional skills to address the problems and respond to the needs of women under the hard political, socio-economic, cultural and legal context in the GazaStrip. Under this project WAC will work together with the West Bank based Women#s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC). Both are independent, non profit, non-governmental organisations dedicated to advocating for women#s rights and gender equality in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Both organisations promote a gender-based, feminist vision which tackles both the obvious manifestations and the root causes of gender inequality.  WCLAC operates solely in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and WAC in the Gaza Strip, and each organisation has developed a close understanding of the needs of women in their respective areas of the oPt. More recently, the two organisations have begun to develop shared interests and expertise.
Both WAC and WCLAC- under this project together withOxfam Novib-  pilot joint strategies to address problems and challenges common to both in addressing the roots causes of gender based violence (GBV).  Oxfam Novib will provide support to develop Monitoring Evaluation and Learning (MEL) skills to facilitate application and institutionalisation of a MEL framework on intervention strategies seeking to change attitudes and behaviours. The aim of this project is to empower a generation of young people to be aware of womens rights and able to claim them. It seeks to connect youth to a thriving network of volunteers, professionals and grassrootsorganisations that are committed to being part of an energised, organised and informed movement for gender equality. Towards this end a network of 175(wclac) and 140 (wac) change agents of which 30 %are men (volunteers in the west bank and university students in Gaza) is formed and has skills to advocate for women#s rights within Palestinian communities by reaching out to a minimum of 20,000 women (60%) and men (40%) in Gaza Strip and in the West Bank through awareness raising sessions, information materials, media initiatives and conference activities. The project will also include a pilot using radio fiction series of 30 episodes and other media products that will strengthen and complement existing strategies to combat violence against women and promotegender equality. The aim to reach large segments of the population in any one time and create spaces for conversations around gender based violence and gender norms (what does it mean to be a man and a woman in this society). Oxfam Novib is bringing bothorganisations in contact with Radio Nisaa - the only radio channel in Palestine dedicated to womens issues- which is going to telecast a 30 part series of radio fiction centred on women#s rights. This project will pilot the use of this radio fiction series to examine if inserting these series in the outreach work of both WAC and WCLAC has an added value and the kind of impact generated from using this tool. Towards this end key staff members of both organisations will be trained  to use toolsto measureattitude and behaviour change as a result of the radio faction series.