The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) is pleased to announce the launch of its new peer learning course “Introduction to gender-based violence (GBV) risk mitigation”.
It is past nine in the evening.
A woman arrives at a new camp carrying a child of about four.
She says her partner is still on the road.
The community health worker notices a bruise above the child’s ear, and a silence from the mother that does not sound like tiredness.
The water point is fifteen minutes away in the dark.
The latrines do not have locks.
The cash queue opens at six the next morning.
No case has been reported yet.
No survey has picked this up.
The nurse is trained in clinical care, not in gender-based violence.
She has to decide what to do before sunrise, on her own.
This is not unusual.
In many countries, in many new settlements, in many displacement sites, the people who make the first decisions about safety have never had space to learn what their choices mean for women and girls.
The 2015 IASC Guidelines are clear that every humanitarian actor, in every sector, must assume that GBV is happening and act on the guidance for their sector, even before the data arrives.
Most of the people who want to respond have never read it.
Enroll now
The Geneva Learning Foundation is opening EQUITY-EN-004 Mitigating GBV in practice: a feminist and decolonial primer for health and humanitarian responders.
It is the second course in the Certificate peer learning programme for gender in humanitarian emergencies.
It is open access.
You should not have to pay to learn about gender-based violence.
It is text-based and low-bandwidth.
It runs for four weeks, at one to two hours per week, with a self-guided option.
Enroll here: https://go.learning.foundation/tglf/c/31987
Call to action
Bring at least one colleague you trust, because this course works better when you take it together.
Peer learning, in one concrete example
A WASH officer in the Democratic Republic of the Congo writes about the decision to move a latrine block closer to the shelters after two women reported following each other to the toilet at night.
A protection officer in Bangladesh reads what the WASH officer wrote and responds with what the same choice did in a camp near Cox’s Bazar, including what it cost in community trust and what it saved in risk.
A nurse in Nigeria reads both and adds what she sees in a stabilisation centre when women arrive at dawn.
A community organiser in Colombia reads all three and names a pattern none of them had named on their own.
That exchange is the learning.
Why peer learning matters for this topic
The primer is grounded in the 2015 IASC Guidelines, the 2019 Inter-Agency Minimum Standards for GBV in Emergencies Programming, and evidence from both scientific research and practice.
It covers risk assessment, referral pathways, safety audits, survivor-led practice, and the recent shift from survivor-centred to survivor-led work.
But the lived experience of local responders, women-led organisations, and the women and girls they serve is what is missing from the global picture.
It is what the global humanitarian system does not yet see clearly.
It is what this course is designed to support.
To our knowledge, this is the first global peer learning primer on GBV mitigation that places local responders and women-led organisations as leaders in direct exchange with national and international colleagues.
Enroll here: https://go.learning.foundation/tglf/c/31987.
Why text, and why not a webinar
We chose text deliberately.
Not because video costs more, but because when you are thinking through something that matters to the people in your care, your brain works better without distractions.
Short readings respect the battery of a phone, the strength of a weak signal, and the few quiet minutes a community health worker has between home visits.
There are no lectures and no long Zoom calls.
You choose when and where to learn.
What you take home
A one-page referral pathway map for your location, checked and ready to use.
A safety walk analysis of one service point in your setting, with three specific changes your team can make in 30 days.
A written action plan with named barriers, named supports, and a simple way to track whether it works.
A critical reflection on power, voice, and your own role, grounded in one feminist or decolonial lens you can use again.
A set of peer reviews you have given and received.
The certification pathway
Learners who complete the course earn a Certificate of contribution from The Geneva Learning Foundation.
This certificate is at European Qualifications Framework Level 7, designed to count as Continuing Professional Development with your professional body.
The certificate is earned by demonstrating contribution and supporting fellow practitioners, not by watching screens or listening to experts.
Completion opens the door to a private community of peers and to the wider Certificate peer learning programme on GBV mitigation, which connects to other TGLF programme components including Teach to Reach, structured peer learning exercises, and the Impact Accelerator that supports implementation of local projects.
Why now
The course is open now, and runs in four-week cycles.
The experiences participants share will inform how the Certificate peer learning programme for gender in humanitarian emergencies develops, and how the TGLF community contributes to global conversations on gender, equity, and humanitarian response.
The more local responders, women-led organisations, health workers, and humanitarian staff who share their experiences, the stronger the evidence that GBV mitigation is not a specialist side issue, but a public health and human rights priority that belongs in every sector.
About The Geneva Learning Foundation
The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) is a Swiss non-profit that connects a community of more than 80,000 health and humanitarian workers who learn with and from each other across borders. TGLF designs peer learning programmes that turn the experience of practitioners into evidence and action. Its programmes connect primers, peer learning exercises, and the Impact Accelerator into a single pathway from first exposure to implementation. Within that community are many women and their allies who have been responding to GBV for years, often in isolation.