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| afghanistan | brazil | cameroon | egypt | india | indonesia | iran | jordan | lebanon | |
| malaysia | mauritania | morocco | nicaragua | nigeria | palestine | turkey | uzbekistan | zimbabwe |
English
ABOUT US
Who We Are
Women's Learning Partnership (WLP) is dedicated to women's leadership and empowerment. At its essence, WLP is a builder of networks, working with 18 autonomous and independent partner organizations in the Global South, particularly in Muslim-majority societies, to empower women to transform their families, communities, and societies.
We strongly believe that women, working in partnership, will learn the skills and implement the strategies needed to secure human rights, contribute to the development of their communities, and ultimately create a more peaceful world.
Our primary objectives are to increase the number of women taking on leadership and decision-making roles at family, community, and national levels, and to improve the effectiveness of feminist movements in Muslim-majority societies and globally by strengthening the capacity of our partner organizations.
WLP is an international, non-governmental organization (NGO) in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
What We Do
In cooperation with our partners, we create culturally-adapted leadership training curriculum and implement leadership and empowerment programs for grassroots women in 18 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.
We build the organizational capacity and ICT capacity of our partner organizations to support the collective mobilization of women in the Global South for gender equality and social justice.
In order to expand and protect women's human rights and to build a culture of peace, we engage in campaigns and hold South-South and South-North dialogues on the challenges and opportunities facing women in the Global South, particularly in Muslim-majority societies.
We ensure that gender equality remains on the agenda of policymakers and civil society leaders through our advocacy and networking activities.
Our news, events, and publications share the experiences of women organizers in the Global South, raising the visibility of their work, and enriching the global debate on gender equality, rights, development, and peace.
Our History
WLP was created in response to the expressed needs of a network of NGO leaders and grassroots activists in the Middle East-North Africa region in the aftermath of the 1995 Beijing Fourth World Conference for Women. On their recommendation, WLP organized a dialogue in June 2000 for 15 women NGO leaders from Muslim-majority societies to identify the themes and priority areas for the newly established organization. The participants concluded that it was of utmost importance to redefine concepts of leadership and power to conform to women's values; develop culture-specific curriculum that could be adapted to varied societies; and train and help women achieve positions of leadership and decision-making in the public sphere.
As a result of these deliberations, WLP developed a concept of participatory leadership based on dialogue, consensus building, and shared vision and identified the key role of information communication technology (ICT) in strengthening South-South and South-North communications in women's human rights advocacy. WLP formed a partnership with an initial group of organizations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East: Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc (Morocco), BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights (Nigeria), and Women's Affairs Technical Committee (Palestine). The organizations worked in partnership to create a prototype leadership training curriculum for women, Leading to Choices: A Leadership Training Handbook for Women.
In 2001, WLP convened a meeting of its International Advisory Council, a group of human rights and development experts with diverse professional, cultural, and religious perspectives, to examine the ideas, concepts, and methodologies used in the new leadership model; to review preliminary field results from test workshops; and to suggest ways of enhancing the prototype handbook.
In 2002, WLP organized an Institute for Women's Leadership and Training of Trainers, expanding the partnership network to include organizations from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia, and Uzbekistan. Drawing on the participatory leadership methodology guiding the prototype curriculum, WLP and its partners established a shared model for grassroots leadership training workshops for women. In addition, partners identified their need for organizational and ICT capacity building to support the implementation of successful leadership and empowerment programs.
The Partnership has grown to include 18 autonomous and independent organizations from the Global South and our culturally-adapted curriculum is now available in 16 languages. We have disseminated our participatory leadership training methodology and expanded and strengthened our networks through six National and Regional Institutes for Women's Leadership and Training of Trainers. While grassroots leadership workshops remain a vital componenent of our work, we have continued to innovate the form and content of our training, and also provide ICT workshops and eCourses (online distance learning courses) in participatory leadership. A long-term commitment to responsive organizational and ICT capacity building has supported the sustainable growth of the Partnership and of our programs.
Our Supporters
WLP's work is made possible by the generous support of individual donors and the following organizations:
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The Brimstone Fund |
