Our Approach

In January 2014, Women Now initiated its first four Centers for Women’s Empowerment in areas of great strife and deprivation for Syrians: Idlib and Ghouta in Syria, and the Bekaa in Lebanon. In 2015 we opened a further four centers in Idlib, Ghouta and the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon.
Most of our activities are run in the Women centers as they serve as a safe space for women and girls and offer a variety of services.
In Women Now for Development we believe that the struggle for women’s rights – is a wide-ranging (holistic), multi-layered and gradual process, especially in the context of war and atrocities. Moreover, struggle for women rights cannot be separated from struggle for peace and democracy.
The process must include men and young people. It must be based on a needs-based approach as well as a rights-based one, building from the grassroots and starting with the most vulnerable and invisible women. It must work to define women as actors rather than just victims, to allow real democratic participation for women, because those women are the real actors on the ground against violence and terrorism.
Syrian local women are agents of change to build resilience to radicalization to violence and conflict, when they are empowered with self-confidence and knowledge.
The process is composed of four main axes: protection, empowerment, political and social participation for women and research and advocacy.

Our vision is of a Syrian society in which all people benefit from full human rights, dignity, freedom and justice; in which Syrian women play a meaningful and active role in political, social, cultural and economic life; and in which girls are protected from harm and safe to develop and grow.

Our mission is to initiate programmes led by Syrian women that protect Syrian women and girls across socio-economic backgrounds, and empower women to find their political voice and participate in building a new, peaceful Syria that respects and safeguards equal rights for all its citizens.