RIWC Mission, Vision, Goals & Strategies
Mission
To achieve gender equity for refugee and immigrant women by building the capacity and leadership of our member organizations.
Vision
RIWC envisions a system of gender equity in which refugee and immigrant women and their communities thrive in a gender equitable world where they have:
•Violence-free homes and communities
•Access to education, health care, employment and life-skills training
•Economic independence and vitality
Goals & Strategies
Goal 1: Review and assess the refugee and immigrant community conditions to identify gaps in knowledge, culturally rooted barriers and promising strategies for improving refugee and immigrant women and girls’ lives.
Our strategies:
•Identify critical capacity gaps in the area of the promotion of gender equity in RIWC member organizations and their communities.
•Implement community-based and community-driven solutions to address gender inequities.
Goal 2: Engage community stakeholders to raise public awareness about the impact of gender inequity on the rights, status, experiences and priorities of refugee and immigrant women and girls.
Our strategies:
•Organize community workshops to raise public awareness on gender inequity in refugee and immigrant communities.
•Foster bottom-up dialogue on the importance of gender equity by providing safe space for men and women in our communities to openly discuss issues and to identify solutions to build acceptance for change.
•Provide counseling, coaching, mentoring opportunities to raise awareness on the rights and responsibilities of men and women, boys and girls as they relate to gender equity.
•Provide peer-learning spaces with refugee and immigrant women, across ethnic lines, to encourage learning experiences as well as social support for the empowerment process.
•Amplify community voices that are collectively implemented by the RIWC members.
Goal 3: Develop the human capital of staff, participants and partners to incorporate gender and cultural values to enable women to realize basic human rights.
Our strategies:
•Build capacity and leadership of RIWC member organizations and their communities through trainings.
•Create learning spaces within RIWC member organizations to increase knowledge of values, principles, and approaches to promote gender equity, including dialogues on the effects of gender inequities as the root cause of program issues.
•Cultivate leadership at all levels of RIWC member organizations, using a gender lens to assess every day decision making in order to promote gender equity.