Livelihoods for Marginalize Women
Child Right Protection and Promotion
Child Rights and Child protection is an area that is often neglected as children are at times considered as less priority group in the society. There is also seemingly a lot of ignorance among the population about various child rights and ways and means of protecting children from abuse and neglect. The national statistics on child right violations incidents explain the country’s situation.
FRIENDS work with children, parents, government, and other stakeholders to develop an environment where child rights are protected and promoted. Children are free from violence, torcher, negligence, or exploitation. They enjoy their rights and grow as responsible citizens.
Alcohol & Drug Prevention
Alcohol & drug use creates various negative effects for individuals and society as it influences people’s emotions and behaviors. In rural settings this becomes a major obstacle for development. Prolonged poverty, violation of children and women’s rights, health issues, suicide and accidents are a few of those. Positive expectations which have been created on alcohol and drug use by industry and society promote the use of this among each group of people. Hence there is a need for challenging expectancies with evidence base practices. Influencing the policy makers for developing alcohol and drug controlling better policies for protecting rights of the people and development of the country is another essential requirement.
FRIENDS conduct programs for challenging alcohol and drug expectancies and reduction of the demand with the participation of men, women, youth and children.
Environmental Development
“Sustainable development is about meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” This is very challenging to maintain, with the various needs and wants of the present generation. Most important components of the environment are damaging or degrading daily resulting pollution of air, water, soil, ocean, etc. and depletion of natural reserves. Therefore, environmental education is necessary to change the attitude of people.
FRIENDS work especially with children and youth for environmental development. Organize green base camps for children and youth to experience the living environment. Educate them on good and bad environmental practices. Create opportunities to participate campaigns on beach cleaning, tree planting, door to door community awareness on garbage management, etc. Through this process they learn about, “What is my environmental responsibility?”.
Empowering Women
“Women’s empowerment has five components: women’s sense of self-worth; their right to have and to determine choices; their right to have access to opportunities and resources; their right to have power to control their own lives, both within and outside the home; and their ability to influence the direction of social change to create a more just social and economic order, nationally and internationally. According to that, education, training, awareness raising, building self-confidence, expansion of choices, increased access to and control over resources, and actions to transform the structures and institutions that reinforce and perpetuate gender discrimination and inequality are important tools for empowering women and girls to claim their rights.”
FRIENDS facilitate women to be economically active through the livelihood development activities. Economic power of women is the foundation to be empower. Formation of village level women groups and divisional level federations create opportunities for women to be leaders and decision makers in their own communities and create opportunities to go beyond.
Mental Health
“Sustainable development is about meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” This is very challenging to maintain, with the various needs and wants of the present generation. Most important components of the environment are damaging or degrading daily resulting pollution of air, water, soil, ocean, etc. and depletion of natural reserves. Therefore, environmental education is necessary to change the attitude of people.
FRIENDS work especially with children and youth for environmental development. Organize green base camps for children and youth to experience the living environment. Educate them on good and bad environmental practices. Create opportunities to participate campaigns on beach cleaning, tree planting, door to door community awareness on garbage management, etc. Through this process they learn about, “What is my environmental responsibility?”.