For the upcoming MdM Days (JMdM), MdM’s advocacy teams in Africa have come up with the idea of launching a Big Slam Competition to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). Whether as an individual or a team, this contest is open to the whole MdM community !
Funny, serious, poetic, edgy, real-life… all styles are allowed, as long as your text helps to raise awareness, mobilize and challenge on the issues of SRHR.
A multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural jury will select the best entries
Those with the best slams will be honored to declaim them at the SRHR Slam Party
either in person or remotely, in front of an audience of MdM fans during the JMdM!
To take part, there are just a few things you need to do:
- Limit : one page, between 225 and 325 words.
- On SRHR topic or, more of our advocacy priorities:
- Prevention and management of unintended pregnancies;
- Addressing SRHR needs in crisis situations;
- Cervical cancer prevention.
- To be sent no later than Tuesday 15 September to the following address: slamdssr@medecinsdumonde.net
By the power of words, reaching out to the authorities !
So that through their humanism, their power to act, these evils that undermine society will cease forever ! With these words, we are convinced that our work of influence, by mobilizing public opinion and public consciousness, will have an impact beyond the books…
Through the power of writing, public speaking, we are determined to increase the power of our advocacy tools by using the essential words, the right words, the words that touch the hearts of these decision-makers… So that, through their humanism, the suffering to which our voices bear witness will be eliminated by better policies for prevention and management of issues related to sexual and reproductive rights and health, here and there !
This internal exercise by MdM teams will help reinforce the
appropriation of MdM’s key messages and SRHR positioning by all …
Médecins du Monde is a humanitarian NGO and a human rights activist. Producing arguments should be an integral part of our advocacy culture, including in the field. Nevertheless, the culture of writing and producing rational, emotional and ethical arguments for our advocacy work by our field teams is becoming increasingly rare.
The aim is to develop a culture of public speaking, the use of words to fight evils. In addition to the policy briefs that support our political demands for our activities, our field teams are interested in supporting the culture of producing advocacy evidence to continue influencing decision-makers in the countries where we work, as well as on a regional and international level.
SLAM is one of the many ways in which we can easily express evils, in a humorous and entertaining way, even about what we think is taboo in the African context
The Initiative was shared with the field teams in Africa, who welcomed it, and was then taken to the global MdM level for broad team participation. To show our field teams that it’s possible! That they have the potential to use the right words to persuade; to share their experiences of speaking out, which feed our advocacy !
It’s also in the African context that a number of humanitarian organizations working in the field of international solidarity find themselves accused of “deporting other mores”. According to John Naughton, slam is “a tool for democratization and a poetic performance art”, allowing us to say even the most annoying things !
