Last Thursday - June 27, 2019, Mães Amigas Ltda, in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), launched an application called Junt@s in the Orange Corners at Kwame Nkrumah Avenue 324, Maputo, Mozambique.

Junt@s is a Mozambican platform, created to promote women's empowerment from a secure digital space, where women can speak openly about Gender-Based Violence, Premature Marriage, Early Pregnancy, and other topics by joining anonymous users where they can have supportive conversations, share experiences, personal advice, and support each other with security and privacy. 

"We want to live in a world where women are not afraid to share their opinion out of fear of judgment and get the support they need when they need it without bias or retaliation," said Alexandra Abdula, founder of Mães Amigas. We are fully aware that our solution is only the first step on a long journey to achieve our vision of women's empowerment." Undoubtedly, Junt@s is building a social movement to empower women from woman to woman.

UNFPA has supported, financially and technically, the development of Juntas@ throughout 2018 and 2019. Deputy Representative, Jenny Karlsen, said: "UNFPA has embraced innovation as a corporate priority and sees innovation as an indispensable force for bringing transformative change to women, girls and young people." Junt@s was a winning idea at the innovation event organized by Seedstars in 2017, where UNFPA led a workshop focused on health and gender issues. As a prize, Junt@s has secured economic support for the platform development and technical advice to ensure application sustainability.

The Junt@s launch event also served as an opportunity to speak and reflect on gender-based violence, a problem afflicting millions of girls and women in Mozambique. The event brought together different actors representing government, civil society, and the diplomatic corps. Participants showed interest in collaborating with Mães Amigas to disseminate information about the application and bring more users, and also made suggestions to ensure the platform's security and effectiveness.