Our impact

Through our partners in 2010-11, Womankind Worldwide…

Our partnership approach creates lasting change on three levels.

1. Change for individuals – delivering practical services such as safe houses, legal advice, education and information.
2. Change for communities – giving women leaders the confidence, skills and knowledge to support and educate other women, and change men’s attitudes to women’s rights.
3. Changing the big picture – influencing local, national and international decision makers, sharing what works and making sure women’s rights and development work is properly resourced and prioritised by people with the clout to make change happen.

Ending violence against women 

Women who said they know who can help/protect them, following our partners’ intervention:

In 2010-11…

We directly improved the lives of over 75,000 women, men, girls and boys in Ethiopia through the work of four local women’s organisations.

In Ghana, we supported three women’s organisations to help 15,000 women living with violence who are at risk of contracting HIV, and our partners worked directly with over 7,000 men to change their behaviour towards women (with funding from DFID and Comic Relief). After one project 90% of community members reported a 60% reduction in violence against women.

By influencing decision makers in South Africa as well as protecting and supporting almost 500 women living with violence, two of our partners changed the attitudes and behaviours of over 70,000 people.

In Zimbabwe our partners changed the attitudes of 4 million people towards violence against women, and provided direct support to 27,000 women living with violence.

Following our partners’ intervention, women who said they felt less frightened:

       Ethiopia                          Ghana                           Peru                               Zimbabwe

Making sure women’s voices are heard

Women’s reported knowledge and confidence about their rights and intention to act (second row) following interventions by our partners:

In 2010-11…

With funding from DFID and the Big Lottery Fund we helped four local women’s organisations to influence the attitudes and choices of nearly 1,500 policy and decision makers in Peru.

With Womankind’s support the Afghan Women’s Resource Centre (AWRC) empowered over 1,500 women to speak out on women’s rights, through training in management, report writing, leadership, civil society and community mobilization.

Thanks to the work of our partners in Albania the percentage of women parliamentarians in the 2009 elections doubled that of the previous elections in 2005, and of the 140 seats in the Parliament, 23 were won by women. A gender quota which forces political parties to involve women in political positions and put their names forward as candidates was also introduced in 2010.

In Zimbabwe over 3,500 women were able to play an active and meaningful role in the country’s political reforms, which were dominated by the constitutional reform process.

In Nepal the Feminist Dalit Organisation (FEDO) recruited women Peace Ambassadors from the Dalit community who are doubly excluded on grounds of gender and status. After training the Peace Ambassadors have developed the skills and confidence of over 4,000 Dalit women who are now better placed to participate in peace building processes in their communities.

Our goals

Here are a few of our key goals for 2011-12:

• Increase the number of women we help to escape violence, whether through legal advice and representation, providing accommodation and services or support and counselling.

• Strengthen our partners by delivering training and tailored support, increasing the organisational capacity of at least 60% of our partners.

• Improve the position of at least one country in the UNDP Gender Inequality Index and one in the World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report.

• Increase our understanding and evidence base on violence against women and conflict related topics.