WJO is first and foremost a women-led and women centered organization. All of our psychosocial counsellors, lawyers, social workers, and advocacy staff are women. This is most important to our target group, women and girls, who are reluctant to speak to male counsellors, lawyers or social workers about their problems, especially when it comes to sexual violence.

We are also aware of the processes of socialization, survival and cultural practices that enable and disable women’s empowerment, including that certain patriarchal practices in Afghanistan can determine the choices which are available to them.

All our staff members are aware of the relation between gender and violence, and they have extensive training in working with traumatized women and girls. In addition, they all have profound knowledge and a strong commitment to women’s rights.  Our staff are trained specifically in gender-based violence, stress and trauma management, self-care, interviewing vulnerable clients, client communication, and case management.

We use a client-centered approach to our work with victims and survivors. This means that GBV survivors are at the heart of our intervention and their protection, safety and empowerment are key considerations.

Our key guiding principles are: right to safety, right to confidentiality, right to dignity and self-determination, and right to non-discrimination. For survivors and victims who are women, we accept first and foremost that a woman is an expert at identifying her problems and the solutions that are right for her and her family.

Taking a holistic approach, when we intervene, we ensure that all aspects of her needs are prioritised including health and medical care and attention, psychosocial counselling, legal support, protection assistance (safety planning), reintegration, food security and livelihoods.

Empowerment has many different meanings. To us, it means creating a space in which someone can develop her own ideas and take her own decisions. This can be done on an individual level and on the level of an organization, we try to do both: provide opportunity for women to develop their professional skills and their careers. And on the organizational level, we want to create the opportunity for our team to find its own identity and their joint goal to strive for. We help them with our experience and solidarity to be the kind of leaders they want to be for the months and years to come.

"We were depressed and hopeless. But after we were empowered, we could make a vision for ourselves. We learned the strengths of others and our strengths are now multiplied. We replace our depression with hope and enthusiasm."

- WJO team reflections