Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Program
Gender-based violence is a key protection concern in the occupied Palestinian territory. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) 2019 Violence Survey, an average of 29% of women in Palestine are victims of GBV. Domestic violence has increased during the COVID 19 pandemic, as women survivors of violence are spending more time in lockdown with their abusers, and with families in lockdown. Helplines are seeing a surge of cases requesting a multitude of services.
This project is a right-based approach that aims to actively bring back meaning and healing to the lives of women victims of Gender-based violence (GBV). We are doing this through the provision of psychosocial support to survivors of GBV using a survivor-centred approach to improve women’s mental health. To achieve women empowerment, we will provide women with greater knowledge, skills, and strategies that enable them to better manage their problems and increase their knowledge about their rights. Furthermore, advocacy aims to sensitize the Palestinian society about the effects of GBV and to create awareness on the situation of women survivors and victims. Through workshops on GBV, we will sensitize men and women on gender rights, raise the society awareness on GBV, and contribute to achieve long lasting changes in favour of women rights in the mind-sets of people. In addition, psychosocial support groups for women provide women with a space to challenge their isolation and find sources of reciprocal support.
Psychosocial Support Groups for Divorced Women
When a marriage ends in divorce, the woman pays the heaviest price on a social and economical level. She is stigmatized, feared, silenced, and secluded from the rest of the society. The men resume their lives as if nothing has happened. They often find a younger woman to marry and establish a new family. According to Sharia law, if a divorced woman remarries, she loses guardianship of her children. The jointly accumulated capital usually remains with the man. Often, when the topic of divorce is discussed in the Arab world, it is the woman who is seen as the source of the breakup, and Arab culture has made divorced women look like they are half women and that they are the last option for men to marry.
Divorce has an enormous psychosocial effect on many aspects of divorced women, including lack of social support, income decline, depression, a feeling of rootlessness and lack of identity, feel abandoned and rejected, anger and anxiety, and lower levels of social involvement.
This program, provides psychological support and group counseling for women who are already divorced or in the process of getting a divorce. Women find a safe place for exchange of feelings, fears, and experiences. The group provides women with a safe, judgment-free environment where they can express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences in exchange for support from other group members. Moreover, the program aims to reduce women’s feelings of stigma towards divorce, introducing them to strategies to overcome their situation, and uncovering their resources. Additionally the program aids women in finding legal and religious counsel.
Women’s Summer Camp
Summer camps are very popular programs that attract children and adolescents through their various diverse activities that help them fill their leisure time with hobbies, sports, and knowledge on numerous subjects. Inspired by this, Wings of Hope for trauma created a summer camp for women aimed at giving them a break from the pressures and stressors of their daily lives by highlighting their resources. Moreover, women are given the opportunity to express themselves through the use of music and art. The goals of this program are to provide stress relief for women through recreational activities, to raise awareness on certain life issues, to emphasize the importance of physical and mental health, to encourage participants to practice relaxation and meditation techniques.