Raising Voices Against Violence: The GBV Awareness Campaign at Tejuosho Market

With a $1,000 grant, a mobile DJ, a banner and a team of volunteers, a small Yaba organisation took its first publicly visible step — and discovered how much of the need was invisible until someone asked.

Context

On 25 November 2015 — the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women — the streets around Tejuosho Market and the adjoining bus terminal in Yaba, Lagos, were busy as always. Traders, shoppers, students from the nearby University of Lagos and Yaba College of Technology, commercial bus drivers, and commuters moved through one of the city’s most active public spaces.

They were also, many of them, living with experiences they did not have words for, did not know were wrong, or did not believe they had the right to name or report. The Initiative for Sustaining Family Unity — a small organisation working out of the Yaba area — believed that information, placed directly in people’s hands in a language and format they could receive, could begin to change that.

With a $1,000 grant from the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) and the determination of a team of volunteers, IforSFU took its first publicly visible step.

What We Did

On 25 November 2015, IforSFU — operating through its For Sisterz Only platform — mounted a public awareness activity in and around the Tejuosho Market and bus terminal. The activity was part of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign.

The approach was deliberately accessible and community-facing. A mobile DJ drew people to the awareness stand — because Nigerians respond to community energy, and a team in branded T-shirts with music was more welcoming than a desk with pamphlets. Volunteers, smartly dressed and clearly identified, moved through the market and bus terminal, distributing information and speaking directly with individuals about what gender-based violence is, how it manifests, and what to do if they were experiencing or witnessing it. A large banner with bold messages provided a visible landmark for anyone who wanted to stop, read, and ask questions.

Printed IEC materials — 500 information leaflets, 300 reflective wristbands, 250 bookmarks, and 250 car stickers — were distributed to traders, shoppers, students, and commuters. Car stickers were affixed to commercial buses and other vehicles: a deliberate strategy to ensure the messages continued to travel through the city long after the event was over. The same messages were shared as display pictures on WhatsApp, BBM, and Facebook — a creative extension that took the campaign well beyond the physical location.

Who We Reached

Direct beneficiaries included women and girls who were traders, shoppers, and students in the Yaba area — the communities most immediately reachable at the Tejuosho location. Men were reached through the vehicle sticker campaign; as commercial bus drivers, their vehicles carried the messages across the city.

In the days and weeks that followed, the activity generated a response that went well beyond the event itself. At least 15 anonymous calls were received by the IforSFU office — from people seeking counselling, advice, and information on how to respond to abuse. Three specific cases emerged in the weeks following the activity:

• A case of child abuse was reported by a neighbour who had seen the IEC materials. The case was promptly referred to the Office of the Public Defender, with IforSFU following up on progress.
• A young woman contacted the office from another city after seeing the sticker messages shared on Facebook — reporting domestic violence and denial of access to her children by her estranged husband. Legal options were being explored.
• A fourteen-year-old girl who had been sexually abused by her landlord was brought to IforSFU’s attention through someone who had seen the Facebook-shared sticker messages. IforSFU joined with other parties to mobilise for the man’s arrest; the case was at the police station when this report was submitted.

Exceptional Moments

Two things stood out beyond the planned activities.

The first was the way the campaign attracted other activists. People who saw what IforSFU was doing joined in — spontaneously, voluntarily, because they wanted to be part of raising awareness against gender-based violence. It was an early signal that the organisation had touched something the community was ready for.

The second was the creative use of social media. The decision to share the car sticker messages as display pictures on WhatsApp, BBM, and Facebook turned a physical campaign into a digital one — and it worked. Followers shared the messages, commented on them, and in doing so carried them to people who had never heard of IforSFU and were not at Tejuosho that day. Three of the most significant cases that followed came through this digital channel, not the physical one.

There was also a moment that exposed something harder. A number of women at the market refused to accept the information materials. Some said domestic violence did not exist. Some refused to be photographed. It was a reminder — one that would shape everything IforSFU did afterwards — that awareness campaigns are only the beginning. The social norms that make violence invisible are not dismantled by a single event. They require sustained engagement, trust-building, and the patient work of being present in a community over time.

What We Learned

This was IforSFU’s first funded public activity. It taught the organisation more than any proposal or planning session could have.

The most important lesson was also the most sobering: a significant number of people face abuse daily without knowing that what they are experiencing is abuse. They are not uninformed about violence in the abstract — they simply have no frame for recognising their own experience within it. Awareness-raising must therefore do more than inform. It must give people a language for their own lives.

The event also confirmed that strategic placement matters more than scale. A small team at the right location — a busy market, a bus terminal, a space where women move through their daily lives — can reach thousands of people in ways a formal event venue cannot. The choice of Tejuosho was deliberate, and it was right.

The social media extension of a physical campaign proved more powerful than anticipated. It cost nothing and reached people the physical event never could; this approach would be built into every subsequent IforSFU activity. And the sheer volume of the response in the weeks afterwards — the calls, the cases, the contacts — confirmed something the team already believed: the need was real, it was present, and people were looking for somewhere to go.

The Thread to Today

The work that IforSFU began at Tejuosho in November 2015 runs directly into the Sheerah Verenda of today. The GBV awareness work that drove this campaign lives now in For Sisterz Only, which continues to create safe spaces for women and girls to raise their voices, share their experiences, and access support. The legal referrals and follow-up that IforSFU pioneered in those early cases are the foundation of what is now the Justice Access Hub. The community counselling that people began to seek out after the event is at the core of Verenda Wellness.

The names have changed. The conviction has not. And the work that a small team of volunteers started at a Lagos market in 2015 — with a DJ, a banner, some wristbands, and a $1,000 grant — is still being done, a decade later, at a different scale.

That event showed us that people were ready. They just needed to know that someone was there to receive them when they were ready to speak.

Kate Ijeoma Ibeanusi — Founder & Executive Director