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COVID-19 RESPONSE
Responding to the COVID-19 crisis by helping the world's most vulnerable women survive.
WHAT WE ARE DOING TO HELP
As the COVID-19 crisis forces many people into isolation, our global community is steadfast in our mission to supporting women.
Across our country programs, many of our in-person trainings have been temporarily suspended to protect the health and safety of women we serve and our staff, and in compliance with government measures.
We’re ensuring the safety and health of the women we serve by:
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Distributing over 4,700 hygiene kits
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Organizing women to sew masks and produce soap for their communities
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Broadcasting radio programs to reach women in remote and rural places
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Continuing to deliver cash stipends to nearly 5,000 women
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Breaking women's isolation by helping them use cellphones to set up groups and establish communication trees to stay connected
Your support has helped us provide women with the accurate information and health resources they need to prevent the spread of disease. From handwashing to hygiene kits, women across the world are better prepared to protect themselves, their families, and their communities from coronavirus, with many drawing on the power and leadership they learned during the program to educate others.
With your help, we can continue to support women in staying safe and healthy during this crisis — and to stand by them as they rebuild their lives afterwards.
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Distance Won’t Stop Our Support
Across all our country programs, our teams have innovated solutions that help women protect against coronavirus while supporting them with the many other pressures that come alongside crisis.
Mobilizing Women
In countries such as Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, and Bosnia & Herzegovina, women in our program and graduates are using tailoring skills to sew masks. In many of these countries, they send masks to support local efforts, such as health workers and police officers, along with their own family and neighbors.
Our DRC team has collaborated with women who produce soap by providing them materials, purchasing soap from them, and distributing them to other women in the program who need it.
Graduates of our program have joined the local government response in Nigeria to educate people on COVID-19.
Distributing Life Saving Resources
We have distributed over 4,700 hygiene kits to women in Afghanistan, providing them with soap, hand sanitizer, masks, gloves, toilet paper, and even leaflets to remind them of how to prevent spreading the disease.
Where possible, our teams have also continued providing women with their cash stipend. In South Sudan, women also receive bars of soap when they pick up their cash stipend.
In some countries, women receive their stipends remotely through banks and mobile money transfers.
Technological Innovations
Our team has been using technology to stay connected to women’s needs and provide women with trustworthy, accurate health and hygiene information.
Through cellphone groups on social media and apps like Viber, women in our Iraq program have been able to stay in contact and be each other’s support system. These groups have been crucial to addressing rising violence against women.
Where women have less access to cellphones, our teams have worked with groups to set up communication trees to stay informed.
Radio programs are both a popular and trustworthy medium in communities where we work. We have collaborated with health experts from the local government and NGOs to educate women and their communities on the pandemic through these programs.
In Kosovo, though, where many women have more access to technology, our trainings have transitioned digitally, so women can continue learning remotely.
HOPE BEYOND THE HEADLINES
Hope Beyond the Headlines is a new series with CEO of Women for Women International, Laurie Adams to shine a light on inspiring stories of strength and resilience from our global Women for Women International family and on how we are using hope and innovation to respond to this crisis. Learn how the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis and global uncertainty it has caused is impacting the women we serve.
At times of uncertainty, hope is the guiding light towards a better future.
Please consider directly supporting women facing violence and displacement as a result of this escalating pandemic by making a donation today.