COVID-19 Response

Sponsorship During the Pandemic

In addition to our country programs, our sponsorship program was affected by the global pandemic. Initially, all enrollment was halted in order for our teams to reach participants and provide the resources they immediately needed. Now, enrollment has resumed for our programs in Iraq, Rwanda, DRC, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. Women are being invited back to training in phases and in small classes to limit personal contact and crowded areas. Enrollment events are taking place.

Now that women in certain areas have begun to resume training, sponsors who have already been matched will be able to continue supporting them.

The health and safety of the women we serve and our staff are our highest priority, and smooth adaptation and transition would not be possible without you and our global community. As we strive to return to our old “normal,” connection, communication, and solidarity will be crucial to shared safety and success. Now, as ever, women around the world need access to health resources and to know their power as leaders of the fight against coronavirus. With your continued sponsorship support and sister connections, we’re developing new and innovative ways to stay in touch with program participants and recent graduates, reestablish stability, and continue to provide lifechanging wellness, economic and social empowerment training resources to our sisters.

Read Our COVID-19 Blogs & Updates

Distance Won’t Stop Our Support

Across all our country programs, our teams have innovated solutions that help women protect against coronavirus while supporting them with the many other pressures that come alongside crisis.

Mobilizing Women

In countries such as Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, and Bosnia & Herzegovina, women in our programs and graduates are using tailoring skills to sew masks. In many of these countries, they send masks to support local efforts, such as health workers and police officers, along with their own family and neighbors.

Our DRC team has collaborated with women who produce soap by providing them materials, purchasing soap from them, and distributing them to other women in the program who need it.

Graduates of our program have joined the local government response in Nigeria to educate people on COVID-19.

Distributing Life Saving Resources

We have distributed over 4,700 hygiene kits to women in Afghanistan, providing them with soap, hand sanitizer, masks, gloves, toilet paper, and even leaflets to remind them of how to prevent spreading the disease.

Where possible, our teams have also continued providing women with their cash stipend. In South Sudan, women also receive bars of soap when they pick up their cash stipend.

In some countries, women receive their stipends remotely through banks and mobile money transfers.

Technological Innovations

Our team has been using technology to stay connected to women’s needs and provide women with trustworthy, accurate health and hygiene information.

Through cellphone groups on social media and apps like Viber, women in our Iraq program have been able to stay in contact and be each other’s support system. These groups have been crucial to addressing rising violence against women.

Where women have less access to cellphones, our teams have worked with groups to set up communication trees to stay informed.

Radio programs are both a popular and trustworthy medium in communities where we work. We have collaborated with health experts from the local government and NGOs to educate women and their communities on the pandemic through these programs.

In Kosovo, though, where many women have more access to technology, our trainings have transitioned digitally, so women can continue learning remotely.