Gender Equality and Women Empowerment Project

The People for Development Organization (PDO) implemented this project in cooperation with Al-Masalla Organization and funded by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The project targets those who are subjected to violence because of sexual differences, and in light of the social conditions that Iraq and the Kurdistan Region are going through, girls and women have become victims of discrimination on the basis of gender, which made them a target of the project. The Gender Equality and Women Empowerment Project has worked on several levels to achieve its objectives, including the protection, development and empowerment of women. The project benefited 27,541 people from the camps of Arbat, Rania and Kalar districts in Sulaymaniyah governorate, in addition to the center of Halabja governorate and Jalawla district in Diyala governorate, with 62 personnel working within the project: 42 of them were contracted and the remaining 16 were volunteers. The project’s mobile teams in various regions provided psychosocial and legal services to 1145 women, and social and psychological support to 1188 women, in addition to providing the Dignity Bag to 6363 girls and women. As part of the project’s activities, and by holding seminars and cultural activities, the project worked on raising awareness among women and girls, where 796 adolescent girls between the ages of 10-18 participated and benefited, as a special United Nations program was clarified. In order to make women aware of the objectives of the project, 18,000 brochures were distributed among them, in addition to two special training courses to raise the standards of 30 female psychologists and social workers.The project’s message reached more than 1900 men directly, through seminars and distribution of brochures to strengthen them economically and professionally, to qualify 314 women, in addition to many other activities such as building government centers in the field and providing them with supplies.