GENEVA, February 6
(UNHCR) – A cosmopolitan mix of women from the corporate and humanitarian aid fields gathered in Geneva on Friday to discuss the empowerment of displaced woman through livelihoods.More
than 30 people from around the world attended the half-day "Worlds of Women Coming Together" meeting, co-organized by the UN Refugee Agency and Women's International Networking. Nyaradzayi
Gumbonzvanda, general secretary of the World YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association), gave the keynote address.Other speakers gave presentations on empowering refugee women with
disabilities, UNHCR's promotion of a wide range of women's livelihood projects around the world, and the role of the corporate sector, philanthropists and diaspora women in helping empower women
through livelihoods.Gumbonzvanda said her native Zimbabwe was in a state of war when she was born and she had grown up with displacement and exclusion. Today, she said, her country was once
more in crisis "and again my family and many women are displaced."She revealed that from her years of experience and visiting camps in place like Sudan's Darfur region, she had found that
protection and livelihoods were top priorities for displaced women."It is so dehumanizing to live in a camp for displaced people for more than 20 years and . . . wait for a handout to send
your kids to school, to look for medicine, to look for food," Gumbonzvanda noted, while adding: "That essence of being able to generate something in your own small way, to care, to nurture, is a
profound human need."Gumbonzvanda said the key benefits of women's livelihoods projects included the possibility of creating "alternative spaces" as well as counselling and therapeutic
advantages – "just being involved collectively in an initiative where you can talk about other things."She said "it's also about developing entrepreneurial skills for self-sufficiency . .
. Lastly, it's about the actual results, which could be the income, the number of women involved, the benefits to the family, the benefits to the community."UNHCR's Asia Bureau Deputy Director
Pascal Moreau, meanwhile, reiterated the agency's commitment to helping empower displaced women through its Women Leading for Livelihoods (WLL) project, set up two years ago.She explained that
WLL was a fund-raising and awareness tool that enables UNHCR offices, partners and refugee women to plan and execute livelihood projects that otherwise might not have seen the light of day.It
was a relatively small programme due to competing demands and limited financial resources – 28 small businesses have been set up in about a dozen countries, with total donations to date of
US$630,000. Projects include a bakery in Serbia, a library and internet café in Morocco, a sewing workshop in Georgia and multi-storey market gardening in Kenya."This kind of meeting is
very precious for us," Moreau concluded.
More . . .
Find out about a new UNHCR initiative aimed at promoting the economic
independence and empowerment of refugee and displaced women and girls around the world: Women Leading for Livelihoods
It is a UNHCR
policy priority to ensure that refugee women and girls have equal access to protection, basic goods and services as they attempt to rebuild their lives. More on our special pages: Refugee Women
Palestinian women sit in front of tents near their destroyed house in Jabalya, in the northern Gaza Strip, February 4, 2009. Thousands of Palestinians are living in tented camps after Israel's ...
