Rebuilding Communities and Improving the Well-Being of Women and Girls in Iraq

The project works at improving the well-being for the most vulnerable women and girls in Iraq. It aims to do so by: creating safe spaces for women and girls to support them in their collective efforts for positive change; supporting meaningful community participation by women; working with men and boys to promote gender equality and positive role models; supporting local women’s rights defenders; contributing to an inclusive, women-led accountable Women, Peace and Security agenda. Project activities include: (1) building the capacity of parliamentarians (women and men) towards policy development that strives to improve gender equality (GE) and promote the participation of women in the rebuilding of their communities; (2) providing technical and financial assistance for women’s rights organisations (WROs) and groups of women’s rights defenders, including, training and coaching in GE, human rights (HR), policy development, network development and livelihoods programming; (3) with the assistance of the WROs, establishing child-friendly women’s spaces where women can meet to seek assistance, education, exchange ideas and discuss matters of importance to the rebuilding of their communities; (4) training for community leaders (who are mostly men), as well as men and boys in GE and issues pertaining to women and girls (and in some cases men and boys) in their communities such as HR, sexual and gender-based violence, and sexual and reproductive health and rights, in order to garner support for improved lives of their mothers, sisters and daughters; (5) establishing networks between women, WROs and community leaders to ensure women’s voices are heard and that they participate in the rebuilding of their communities, develop and conduct a social media campaign with GE messaging based on the work with community leaders, men, boys, women and girls to champion GE. .