Sonke Gender Justice uses various social change strategies to promote a healthy, equal society. These include:

• Working with government to promote change in policy and practice
• Community mobilisation
• Organisational development
• Community education, including work with the media
• Individual skills building
• Monitoring and evaluation, and
• Building effective networks and coalitions. 
  

These wide ranging strategies recognise that changing deeply held beliefs about gender roles and relations requires a comprehensive, multi-faceted approach. The social change approach tries to impact on traditions and cultures, government policies, laws and institutions, civil society organisations, the media, the family and economic, political and social pressures.

Successfully affecting these social factors requires networking and co-operation between organisations.

Spectrum of Change

Sonke Gender Justice has adopted the Spectrum of Change approach as a planning and programme tool. This approach identifies eight interconnected social change strategies which promote changes at the individual, social, political and economic levels. These strategies are to:

• Strengthen individual knowledge, skills and leadership capacity
• Promote community education
• Foster coalitions and networks
• Change and strengthen organisational practices
• Educate providers and key stakeholders
• Engage in rights-based community mobilisation and advocacy
• Work with government

Sonke Gender Justice sees the first level as a critical starting point to transforming attitudes and practices within individuals, communities, organisations and public institutions. However work with individuals and small groups is also a starting point for broader social, cultural, legal and political transformation.