Click here to read our profile in 5280 Magazine! It’s very cool and a good way to share our story and support for women’s empowerment with your community.
Imagine attending school or work without toilets or drinking water. Imagine attending a school with a single latrine for all the students, or that the latrine is smelly, with no toilet paper and the door no longer closes. Just imagine attending one of these schools when you have your period.
This is the reality for women and girls in lower income countries and vulnerable populations. Help us change this reality.
With the launch of HPI Global, WGEF is expanding the Healthy Periods Initiative, creating local manufacturing centers. Our goal is to have five machines in five centers operating in sub-Saharan Africa.
We cannot do this without you!
Our first expansion center is now open in the Lowengo District in southwestern Uganda. By producing products locally, we create local economies; providing resources and economic opportunities to women and communities through manufacturing and microenterprise.
A local supply chain provides sanitary products to the most vulnerable populations at little to no cost: school girls, refugees, displaced persons, and those who lack access to affordable products. HPI Global ensures women and girls have what they need to manage their menstrual health with dignity, enabling girls to stay in school longer, creating opportunities and empowerment for a more equitable future.
It’s about dignity, PERIOD.
Women’s Global and VacNet partnered to host a Youth Advocacy Forum for the first time at the Gulu Women’s Resource Center (GWRC) to address chronically high rates of youth unemployment – estimated at 70% in the Gulu District. Youth in the region have limited participation in the planning and governance, and lack leadership and advocacy skills, making youth involvement and participation in governance and development agendas unrealistic. The forum had a theme of “Get Inspired, Get Informed, Get Organized.”
The goal of the event was to inspire, educate and call on youth leaders in northern Uganda to become more vocal, well-informed, better-organized advocates and change-makers.
Mr. Okello Geoffrey, a seasoned human rights activist and Executive Director of Gulu District NGO Forum, facilitated the youth forum to share practical tips and tools. Fifty parish youth leaders gathered to learn about advocacy skills, tools and platforms to caucus and discuss issues that affect youth in their community, as well as suggest recommendations.
Today a team of 25 Peer counsellors our access to justice volunteers gathered at Gulu Women Resource Center (GWRC) to receive further training on community engagement skills, paralegal services, human rights, and conflict resolution. They were trained to share best practices and improve upon their work with a deeper understanding of the types and causes of human rights abuses/violations, monitor, document, and report cases in the community.
WGEF’s Peer Counsellors (PCs) are positioned at parish level and serve as mediators and a link between victims and service providers for fellow community members facing human rights abuses and violations. The issues they encounter range from land and property conflicts between family members to rape and defilement of adolescent girls. The Access to Justice program incorporates community dialogues aimed at sensitizing the community on their rights to access fair and timely justice and provide referrals to other service providers.
Recently, our access to justice team have been working with the probation office and police to process 35 more cases which have been a backlogged. Many of these cases involved women and children who are finally able to get justice.
“I believe that injustice can only be eradicated when women are able to take charge of their lives and claim their rights”.
— Betty WGEF peer Counsellor