Practitioner – Niki Hall-Jones

Action Breaks Silence is an educational, non-profit organization, established to create a world where women and girls can live their lives free from gender-based violence and the threat of such violence.

Action Breaks Silence employs a multi-pronged approach to end gender-based violence in communities by actioning the delivery of the Action Breaks Silence Community Intervention in schools’ settings.

A “Whole Schools Approach” (developed by Ava ) is used to engage, educate, and empower all members of the school’s community, including school governors, senior management, staff, students, parents and caregivers to end gender-based violence in schools and surrounding communities.

The Action Breaks Silence Community Intervention which tackles sexual harassment and sexual violence also includes strategies to address gender inequality and toxic masculinity that underpin this behaviour. The design and delivery of the intervention is guided by the Social Norms and Active Bystander Theories.

Community, Education, NGOs/CBOs

Domestic violence / Intimate partner violence, Gender-based violence, Masculinity, Sexual violence, Violence in Schools and Educational Institutions

Our Founder and CEO, Debi Steven (MA: Women and Child Abuse, London Metropoliatn University) has worked alongside an international community of activists, academics, and youth to design the Community Intervention which is aimed at profoundly changing the prevailing narrative on gender-based violence.

We have been working in school environments in Soweto, Pretoria West and Diepsloot since 2016, delivering our 16-Hour Primary Schools Programme which is delivered to both boys and girls over a 2-year period, starting in Grade 5.

Empowerment Through Self-Defence Workshops (for women and girls) and Understanding Toxic Masculinity Workshops (for men and boys) are delivered to teachers and parents / carergivers in the same school environments as well as in community settings.