Women’s Education for Advancement and Empowerment (WEAVE)
Mission
Women’s Education for Advancement and Empowerment (WEAVE) strives to create a world where empowered women and their children are free to exercise their rights and live peacefully in a just, humane and equitable society.
Goals
- To provide education and training for displaced women and children from Myanmar and its bordering areas.
- To foster the development of self-managing and self-sustaining women’s organizations and community based projects.
- To raise the level of awareness of issues affecting displaced women and children from Myanmar and its bordering areas in partnership with women’s organizations.
Projects
WEAVE’s projects attempt to address some of the problems faced by marginalized ethnic women and their children from Myanmar in the key areas of education, health,economic empowerment and self reliance. WEAVE’s target communities are displaced persons, particularly women, recognizing their role in providing for their families and in ensuring the well-being of their children. Their work has expanded to include the India-China-Burma border, but mainly concentrates along the Thai-Myanmar border.
The Early Childhood Development Project
The Early Childhood Development Project provides technical and financial assistance to over 4,500 pre-school children in over 50 nursery schools managed by ethnic Burmese women’s organizations inside and outside of the refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar and China-Myanmar borders. The overall objective of the project is to ensure that displaced Burmese children from the ages of 2.8 to 6 have access to quality early childhood programs which provide the foundations to develop their physical, emotional, intellectual and creative potentials.
The Women’s Capacity Development Project
The Women’s Capacity Development Project provides technical and financial support to various displaced ethnic women’s organizations along the Thai-Myanmar, India-Myanmar and China-Myanmar borders. The project’s components include: (a) a technical and training series to various women’s organizations on project management, strategic planning and organizational development; (b) a 10-month Women’s Study Program in Mae Hong Son which offers study courses to Burmese ethnic women and young girls and training opportunities on Women’s Issues and Development, Peace Education and Community Development; and (c) the provision of educational technical and financial assistance to post-10 education in Karenni refugee camps.
The Economic Empowerment and Development Program
The main objective of the program is to ensure that Myanmar displaced women and girls in Thailand have the opportunity to engage in economic activities and acquire vocational knowledge and skills essential for their development in becoming agents of change in their communities. WEAVE, as part of its emphasis on economic empowerment and self-sufficiency, focuses on capacity development attempting to bring women toward self-determination. WEAVE’s EED program provides women with the opportunities to acquire knowledge and skills in micro credit, micro finance, small business development and marketing so that they have the tools to fight simultaneously against poverty and gender discrimination. WEAVE provides groups of refugee women with small funds to support themselves in their striving for economic self-sufficiency. WEAVE also aims to strengthen the capacity of existing women’s organizations focusing particularly in areas such as technical, organizational, vocational and financial management.
The Health Project
The health project provides an integrated women’s health education which focuses on the design, production and dissemination of culturally appropriate materials in Burmese ethnic languages such as Karen, Karenni, Lahu, Mon, Kachin, Shan and Burmese. The health materials cover topics such as reproductive health, HIV/AIDS awareness, nutrition, family planning, childcare and violence against women (VAW). The distributed WEAVE health materials use pictures, diagrams and simple language so that people with a low level of education can understand the messages being conveyed.
References
- http://www.weave-women.org