Women’s Rights and Health Project (WRAHP) with support from Global Affairs Canada (GAC) through ActionAid Nigeria, has successfully implemented the “Women’s Voice and Leadership Project Nigeria” (WVL-N) over the past five years (2019-2024). WRAHP’s specific intervention area focused on “Addressing Sexual and Gender Based Violence/Violence Against Women and Girls. The project location was Lagos State, South West Geopolitical Zone of Nigeria, covering 10 LGAs / LCDAs and 7 communities.
Key Objectives
The WVL-N project aimed to:
- Enhance programming and advocacy to prevent and respond to SGBV/VAWG.
- Advance gender equality in Lagos State.
- Improve the management and sustainability of local women-led community-based organizations.1
Major Accomplishments
Over the past five years, WRAHP has:
- Rebuilt lives and restored hope for 633 women and girls survivors of SGBV through counselling, legal aid, and psychosocial support services at the Ireti Resource Center.
- Secured convictions for 2 perpetrators of sexual offenses.
- Challenged patriarchy by engaging community leaders and men in addressing VAWG.
- Built the capacities of 2,761 young GBV ambassadors who champion GBV prevention and response issues affecting their peers.
- Increased community access to existing GBV laws and policies through simplification and dissemination.
- Sensitized 29,032 community members (women, girls, men, boys, persons with disabilities) to protect themselves against violence and to refer cases of gender-based violence.
- Amplified the voices of women in the commercial transport business to speak boldly against SGBV and promptly report all cases of rights violations, e.g., Ladies on Wheels Nigeria (LOWAN) Lagos State.
- Included persons with disabilities in community SGBV prevention and response, reaching 50 individuals via community legal clinic services.
- Addressed issues of staff burnout, vicarious trauma, resilience-building, stress management, and coping strategies with first responders from 11 leading women-led and women’s rights organizations in Lagos State working on SGBV.
- Established strong partnerships with government ministries and agencies (Lagos State Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency, Lagos State Police Command, Lagos State Office for Disability Affairs, etc.) to address SGBV in Lagos State.
- Provided economic succour to 118 vulnerable women and GBV survivors through palliatives during COVID-19.
- Successfully built the capacity of 12 women-led community-based organizations (CBOs) on organizational development, system strengthening, and case management of SGBV.
- Strengthened the institutional capacity of WRAHP through various capacity-building initiatives, leading to the approval by WRAHP’s Board of 16 policies and manuals, such as the Resource Mobilization Strategy, Finance and Procurement Manuals, Human Resources Policy, Communication Policy, 5-Year Strategic Plan, Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, Safeguarding Policy, etc., now fully in use.
Read up on WRAHP’s Women’s Voice and Leadership Nigeria Project Report. Click here to read