Institute for Faith and Gender Empowerment
In many communities, a woman's safety still depends on who her husband is.
IFAGE works with leaders, families, and communities across East and Central Africa to build places where every person - woman, man, and child - lives safely, contributes fully, and is treated with dignity.
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Community and faith leaders trained across Kenya
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Countries at the 2025 Pan-African Conference in Limuru
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People who gathered to advance the continental agenda on gender justice
Who we are
We start where change actually begins.
In most communities across East and Central Africa, the people who shape how life works are not distant policymakers. They are pastors and imams. Elders and chiefs. Teachers, fathers, and the young person the whole village seems to listen to.
Those are the people IFAGE works with.
We are a Nairobi-based organisation working across East and Central Africa. We bring together the leaders and institutions that communities already trust - and work alongside them to challenge the norms and practices that hold people back. Not from the outside. From within.
When a pastor changes how he speaks about marriage, his congregation listens. When a chief takes a stand, families are protected. When women build a savings group, the whole household benefits. When young men choose to lead differently, the next generation grows up differently.
That is what lasting change looks like.
Strategic pillars
Change does not come from one programme.
Inequality is held in place by beliefs, by habits, by lack of opportunity, and by systems that were not built with everyone in mind. IFAGE works on all of those things - together, not in isolation.
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Change Norms
We work with the people who shape what a community believes is normal - pastors, elders, chiefs, teachers, and men - to challenge the attitudes and practices that cause harm.
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Empower Communities
We walk alongside communities - building the knowledge, skills, and confidence to take greater control of their own lives, their households, and their communities.
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Connect People to Support
We build pathways to the health, legal, and social services that people in rural communities struggle to reach and we train community members to help their neighbours navigate them.
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Influence Systems
Individual and community change is not enough on its own. We engage with laws, policies, and institutions - pushing for structures that protect people and hold communities accountable.
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Sustain the Work
An organisation that runs out of focus or resources cannot serve communities well. We take the health and sustainability of IFAGE seriously - so the work keeps going.
Our Strategy 2026-2031
Explore the model guiding IFAGE's next chapter and how community-level work connects to systems change.
Featured work
Programmes that connect belief, behaviour, services, and systems.
Norm change
Positive Masculinity
IFAGE's flagship curriculum works with men and boys to examine and transform the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours that drive inequality and harm. Not because men are the problem. Because men, when they choose to lead differently, are one of the most powerful forces for change a community has.
Learn MoreYouth & adolescents / next generation
Shaping the Next Generation
The young person sitting in a classroom today is the parent, the pastor, the chief, and the community leader of tomorrow. IFAGE works with young men and women in schools and communities to open honest conversations about gender, relationships, respect, and healthy futures.
Learn MoreEconomic empowerment & health
Livelihood, Economic Empowerment & Health
In Nyanza region of Kenya, 440+ women are saving together, lending to one another, and building businesses from the ground up. Economic strength, health knowledge, and personal safety are built together, because they belong together.
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Continental convening
Pan-African Conference
Every two years, IFAGE brings together the people doing this work across Africa - from the academy, the community, the policy room, and the field - to share evidence and advance the continental agenda.
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"When faith leaders speak with conviction for women's dignity, communities change."
IFAGE gave us the theological grounding and practical tools to lead that change within our own congregation.
Faith Leader, Siaya County, KenyaPartners & recognition
Working with faith, academic, and development partners.
