Integrated Faith & Gender Justice Leadership Program
Through this program, we partner with local faith communities, women’s groups and community-based organizations to lead empowerment on “Gender Justice & Equality” for women and men.
In order to influence and transform harmful social, religious, and cultural gender norms in the society including policies and structures of male dominance and negative practices against women and girls, this program targets key faith leaders, women and youth groups on a number of issues including:
- Understanding basic human rights for women and men
- Clarifying just policies and social structures for women among women and men
- Balanced theology and interpretation of sacred/religious texts for shared leadership among women and men
- Provision of equal opportunities in decision-making processes
- Causes and effects of sexual, gender based and domestic violence in the society
- The role of faith actors regarding gender justice, equality, and reconciliation, among other things
This program is implemented through two main activities:
i) Gender Reconciliation Leadership Training
We develop and adopt contextualized resource manuals that target, equip and empower faith and community leaders on the theology of gender, vulnerability of women and girls in the community, and what positive masculinity and gender reconciliation is all about.
ii) International Forums on Faith and Gender Justice
We host Pan-African Faith and Gender Justice conferences every two years, to provide safe spaces and opportunity for faith actors, women leaders, survivors of sexual violence, researchers, civil society groups, educators, international humanitarian organizations, and development agencies, among others, for constructive dialogue and conversations on gender justice and equality in the sub-Saharan African context.
In a three days meeting, delegates gathered from across Africa and around the world take time to discuss and deeply explore IFAGE's three main agenda/themes including; Faith & Gender Justice issues, Advocacy for Improved Health for Women and Girls, and Gender Responsive Climate Action. Both days feature grass-root voices from around Africa and the world, and showcase the most innovative solutions to the challenges.
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In every conference we aim at providing a safe space for faith actors to learn and openly give opinions on their role in ending violence against women and girls through group discussions and workshops.
Advocacy for Improved Health for Women and Girls
In sub-Saharan Africa, many harmful social and cultural norms and practices affect and discriminate against women and girls based on gender and eventually compromise their health, equality, and social well-being in the society, as compared to men. These factors include:
- Family planning/reproductive health challenges for women and girls.
- Female genital mutilation.
- Sanitation & hygiene.
- Early/child marriages.
- Bride price & dowry payment.
- Lack of priority for girl-child education, among others.
Through public lectures and research initiatives, we seek to engage, influence, and empower communities to end violence against women and girls by working with churches, civil society groups, politicians, and government agencies regarding policy, structural, and institutional reforms for equality and justice for women and men.
Currently, IFAGE is working with community leaders and faith actors to end female genital mutilation and supports the education of young women and girls who are mostly survivors of domestic and sexual violence (early/child marriages) by providing psycho-social support and opportunities to continue with their education.
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While reproductive health rights are emotive and controversial, because of the moral, ethical and religious undertones of birth control, abortion and family planning. IFAGE is seeking a clear path of engagement with religious community and other stakeholders in order to create points of entry for safer conversation and dialogue on the same.
Gender Responsive Climate Action (GERECA) Program
As acknowledged by The United Nations and other international humanitarian organizations, climate change affects women, men, boys, and girls in different ways.
But entrenched and systemic discrimination can lead to gender-differentiated impacts of climate change with respect to health, food security, livelihoods, and human mobility, among other things, which increases the vulnerability of women and girls.
We seek to explore what gender responsive climate action looks like, bringing together faith actors, researchers, youth, and women leaders, learning institutions, governments, climate change and environmental activists, among others, to discuss and build capacity for inclusive policy-making and innovative practices that integrate gender considerations in climate plans and action.