U.N. awards grant to Women’s Justice Initiative

The Women’s Justice Initiative (WJI), which empowers Guatemalan women to address inequality and gender violence, has won a highly competitive grant from the United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women.

Women at the WJI workshop

“The award will support WJI’s work to ensure Maya women and girls are able to exercise their rights to live free from violence and have increased access to justice,” said Kate Flatley, executive director and founder of the nonprofit.

“Through community-based interventions, WJI is working with women, community leaders, police and judges to transform norms that view violence against women and girls as inevitable and acceptable,” she explained. “The award will support WJI’s current programming, as well as new initiatives training police officers, judges and community leaders.”

Based in Patzún (Chimaltenango department), WJI was among only 33 organizations in the world to receive a grant from among over 1,700 applicants. “Over the next three years we will be implementing innovative approaches to combating violence against women with the aim of developing models that can be replicated by others in the field,” Flatley said.

Established in April 2011, WJI empowers Guatemalan women to address inequality and gender violence. Its four program areas are women’s rights education, legal services, child marriage prevention and community advocacy.

The initiative targets Patzún and 22 surrounding communities. Over the next few years Flatley hopes to extend WJI’s reach into all 36 nearby towns. Roughly 60,000 people live in the area.

In preparing to begin the grant-funded project, Flatley and Elvia Raquec, a WJI program coordinator, traveled to New York in mid-Nov-ember to participate in a capacity development workshop on project planning.

Women at WJI training

The workshop provided them with the opportunity to learn to effectively plan and monitor WJI’s project while sharing best practices with other grantee organizations from 28 countries around the world.

Although the grant is generous, Flatley noted it only covers half the cost of the three-year program. “We are counting on generous supporters to make this effort a success,” she said. “I hope you will consider joining the U.N. in supporting WJI’s work to end violence against women and girls in rural Guatemala.”

To donate or for more information, contact:
info@womens-justice.org or visit womens-justice.org

 

Ed note: Reference Revue Oct. 2014 NGO spotlight:
revuemag.com/2014/11/