WHAT WE DO
Sisterpower is an international Women’s Aid organization with an acknowledged holistic and methodical approach to transformation.
​
Sisterpower is not a relief organization — our focus is on development and sustainability through our full-circle empowerment programs.
​
The overall purpose of our programs is to provide women with trauma treatment, physical safety, emotional and financial support, legal aid, education in family planning, professional skills and opportunities for self-sufficiency, access to safety network as well as protecting their right to be treated as equals in dignity and law.
​
Hereby we achieve real and sustainable empowerment of the women resulting in economic, psychological and social development.
We work with vulnerable women in countries from the criteria: greatest impact, easiest access, which means that some criteria must be met before initiating a project.
​
SisterPower also works to gain a strong voice as advocates for women's rights on the global stage.
OUR APPROACH
We work from an acknowledged methodological approach specialising in creating safety in unsafe environments with the involvement of networks and the local community's resources, strengths and competencies.
This is extremely unique and has a huge potential to reach the women that others otherwise cannot reach.
​
Women are at a disproportionate risk of developing common mental disorders due to gender based violence, socioeconomic disadvantage, low income and income inequality, low or subordinate social status and rank and unremitting responsibility for the care of others.
​
Especially the high prevalence of sexual violence to which women are exposed renders them the largest single group of people affected by PTSD.
A specialized knowledge of the work of stabilizing severely and chronically traumatized people also forms the basis for working with the women and thus ensures a very high professional quality in the work, which is otherwise in short supply in many of the areas where SisterPower International plans to establish projects.
​
But in order for the communities to gain from our work, we also focus on Community empowerment.
Community empowerment is a process of re-negotiating power in order to gain more control. It recognizes that if some people are going to be empowered, then others will be sharing their existing power and giving some of it up.
More specifically, we include the communities through open seminars, workshops and lectures to educate them. Communication plays a vital role in ensuring community empowerment. Actions that encourage discussion and debate result in increased knowledge and awareness, and a higher level of critical thinking. Critical thinking enables communities to understand the interplay of forces operating on their lives, and helps them make their own decisions.
​
Our work is largely based on our local partners' strengths, resources and experience.
However SisterPower ensures competence development of all our partners in order for them to implement the empowerment programme in a professional and methodical way.
​
The local partners are working independently, however SisterPower will continue to have a supervisory obligation in relation to ensuring that the concept meets the established standards.
THE UN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
The SDGs represent an internationally shared global agenda for sustainability looking forward to 2030. They address the most pressing challenges of our time - aiming to help everyone from governments and businesses to citizens to transform our world, by stimulating actions that benefit people and the planet.
Empowering women in the economy and closing gender gaps are key to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic could reverse the limited progress that has been made on gender equality and women’s rights. The pandemic has also led to a steep increase in violence against women and girls. With lockdown measures in place, many women are trapped at home with their abusers, struggling to access services that are suffering from cuts and restrictions.
Women are not only the hardest hit by this pandemic, they are also the backbone of recovery in communities. Putting women and girls at the centre of economies will fundamentally drive better and more sustainable development outcomes for all, support a more rapid recovery, and place the world back on a footing to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
SISTERPOWER SUPPORTS ALL THE SDG´S BUT WE WORK SPECIFICALLY TO ACHIEVE NO 1, 3, 5, 8 & 10.
