Broadcast: November 15, 2026 at 4 p.m.
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Host Reena Ninan speaks with Sonya Passi, CEO and Founder of FreeFrom, a U.S. nonprofit working to end gender-based violence. Recently, FreeFrom was one of 10 nonprofit recipients from Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chains Fields Music Festival. Passi believes the main challenge for GBV survivors is feeling financially trapped. She tells Ninan about how this core principle guides their evidence-based programs, including providing cash assistance to survivors with no strings attached.
Next, reporting from Kampala, Uganda, journalist Leah Kahunde N’dungu visits a community violence prevention model that has been replicated around the world. The SASA! method, which the nonprofit Raising Voices created in 2008, is one of the few community-based violence prevention programs that has been rigorously evaluated. In a randomized control study, Sasa was shown to reduce the risk of intimate partner violence by 52 percent. N’dungu speaks with program workers, a gender researcher, and a previously embittered couple who’s benefitted from SASA’s approach.
And last, we explore how to reduce the proliferation of online gender-based violence. According to the UN, about 3 out of 5 of all women and girls globally have experienced digital abuse online. In this segment, journalist Sanjna Selva travels to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where a TikTok star rattled the consciousness of her country. A warning that this section contains material involving suicide.