Women’s Issues
You can help to empower women who, bearing 70% of the world’s poverty, are often left without basic access to clean drinking water, sanitation, medical care, decent employment and protection from violence. By teaching gender equality, leadership skills and the art of mentoring to communities as a whole, women will rise up with the confidence, skills and freedom to make their own choices.
Visit each country to learn where you can foster empowerment for women.
Kenya
Barchando HIV/AIDS and Poverty Eradication Group is an HIV/AIDS awareness and education program that provides support for those living with and/or affected by the virus. Barchando develops infrastructure and social facilities that strive to create a healthy community. As a volunteer, you’ll work in a wide variety of social and health service programs.
Common Ground for Africa (CGA) has numerous and effective programs at work to mitigate poverty, the single largest threat to human well-being and social stability in Kenya. As a volunteer, you’ll have an incredible range of opportunities from working at Pathfinder Academy to promoting public health/clean water awareness at the ceramic water filter facility to working with women in business development and organic farming trainings.
Dago Dala Hera (DDH) reaches out and cares for over 70 children who have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS as well as children who are HIV-positive. As a volunteer, you will become part of the team at the orphanage, counseling and caring for the children. Volunteers can also work with women’s groups and every August, you can participate with the Kick it with Kenya Soccer Tournament and Leadership Conference.
Education for Leadership and Network Development (ELAND) develops vital education opportunities for people of Maasai communities. As a volunteer, you’ll be immersed in teaching programs for children at Kikuma Primary School and/or work with local women’s groups on increasing literacy and on public health issues.
Mama Na Dada Africa (MnD) empowers girls and women through education so they can gain social and financial independence and escape the prevalent consequences of gender discrimination. This is an immersion program opportunity that allows volunteers to participate in a wide range of diverse community enriching activities.
Namunyak Maasai Welfare (NMW) alleviates the harshest conditions for the most marginalized individuals in Maasai communities by creating access to education, public health practices, micro finance opportunities and organic farming training. Your volunteer experience will expose you to a variety of social services including primary education, working with special needs children, economic development with women and building and construction projects.
Sister Freda’s Foundation (SFF) provides hospital and clinic services, a nursing school as well as free community outreach health care clinics and in local slums, refugee camps and rural villages without access to health care. SFF provides a clinic for counseling for HIV/AIDS patients and they operate a daycare/feeding program. Sister Freda seeks volunteers with both medical and non-medical experience to work in the hospital and clinics and with the children.
Ghana
Dzidefo Women’s Cooperative is a small textile cooperative that operates out of an orphanage in Ghana. As a volunteer, you’ll be able to apply your interest in sewing and design, and assist the women in business and marketing of their toddler clothing, home accessories and more.
Kpando Pottery Fesi Shed is a women’s cooperative of 35 members, predominantly single mothers, that helps its members earn supplemental income for their families through the production and sales of pottery. As a volunteer, you’ll help this community program succeed by providing either artistic services such as pottery or non-artistic services like teaching English and business management skills.
India
New Light is a secular nonprofit charitable trust that has a night-shelter to protect and educate young girls, children and women at high risk through safe shelters, educational opportunities, recreational facilities, health care and legal aid. You must be female to volunteer with New Light. As a volunteer, you have the potential to provide a variety of much needed services such as teaching, nursing, performance artistry and construction of a hospital.
Udyogini, meaning woman entrepreneur, is a program providing business development services for non-governmental organizations and poor women. As a volunteer, you will educate poor, mainly illiterate, women in areas of fundraising and marketing, micro-credit and micro-lending and financial analysis to improve their skills as producers and their knowledge of the markets they operate in.