Gender Equality
CARE’s Gender Programme seeks to promote the values and practices of gender equality, diversity and non-violence by strengthening the capacities of local, national and regional human rights and social justice actors and by creating opportunities for innovation, participation, learning, cooperation and advocacy. Women and girls vulnerable to violence, discrimination and poverty will be empowered to reach better life opportunities and social justice by CARE’s engagement and contribution to strengthening sustainability of key regional, national and/or local civil society organizations and networks promoting gender equality and diversity, in the context of social inclusion and non-violence. The change that CARE is working towards is related to improved implementation of existing national legislation, policies and institutional support mechanisms related to gender-based violence and discrimination of women, changed attitudes and behaviours of relevant communities and government institutions towards gender equality and masculinity, strengthened sustainability of key regional, national and/or local civil society organizations and networks promoting gender equality and diversity, in the context of social inclusion and non-violence and enhanced life opportunities for economically and socially deprived women & girls. CARE’s focuses on three key programmatic themes:
For Active Inclusion and Rights of Roma Women (FAIR)
CARE seeks to enhance the advocacy position of Roma women’s organisations, strengthen capacities of the partner organisations to implement projects aimed at empowering Roma women in the Western Balkan region, establish an effective regional network that would be instrumental in exchanging the best practice models and policies and raising awareness on status of Roma women. CARE is supporting Roma women lead NGOs (working with 15+ Roma women organisations), networks and Roma women activists to engage in policy dialogue, defend their rights, advocate for changes at community, entity and national levels as well as to implement projects that either tackle the vulnerability of Roma women in specific communities, and/or address policy issues on local and national level.
FAIR project is supported by Austrian Development Agency
Women Economic Empowerment
CARE’s engagement in women’s economic empowerment aims to foster economic participation of marginalized and women vulnerable to all forms of violence by enabling them to exercise rights, compete on the labour market and start-up their own businesses. CARE seeks to empower women through building their skills and capacities and ensuring their economic participation while exercising all rights. CARE intention is to target women who had been deprived of the right to employment because of their social or ethnic background as well as women who had survived or are vulnerable to violence and thus would benefit from the assistance related to the economic empowerment. Alongside the assistance provided to individuals, CARE promotes social entrepreneurship and works in partnership with and builds capacity of the local civil society organizations (CSOs) and cooperatives that are led by women and work for women. This also includes advocacy efforts to create enabling environment for social entrepreneurship and women economic empowerment.
CARE’s Women Economic Empowerment efforts have been supported by: Austrian Development Agency, European Union, OAK Foundation
