The Women for Peace & Gender Equality Initiative (formerly the Commonwealth Women’s Organisation Nigeria) is committed to empowering girls and women with the skills to promote sustainable peace through inclusive gender equality. They also strive to ensure women’s meaningful participation in peacebuilding and policy making process from the grass roots to the national level in Nigeria. The organisation invests in women and girls in order to accelerate socio-economic and political development through a peaceful, equitable and inclusive society.

Objectives:

• To sensitize, educate and improve skills and knowledge of girls and women on all forms of sexual and gender-based violence and human trafficking.
• To empower and invest in women and girls educationally, politically, economically and socially in order to contribute to poverty reduction.
• To improve the health and general well-being of women and girls by facilitating their access to information and clinical services on malaria, sexual and reproductive health, and rights matters.
• To increase the participation of women in peace processes and leadership positions through engagement of stakeholders.
• To improve the status of women and empower them to address their gender needs.
• To provide a uniform platform of advocacy for resolving social issues and eradicating inequalities at grass roots level for policy-level changes.

Major achievements

• Training and participation in an international conference on conflict prevention and peacebuilding for women leaders in south-west Nigeria.
• Outreach activities, such as public awareness, sensitization and rallies.
• Media activities, such as radio and TV programmes and documentaries.
• Effective bottom-up, three-prong approach for ending hunger and poverty: mobilizing people at the grass roots level to build self-reliance; empowering women as key change agents; and forging effective partnerships with the local government on peacebuilding.
• Informing and engaging the public by using education, women entrepreneurship and advocacy skills to create a platform to increase awareness of the issues facing teen mothers and gender-based domestic violence.
• Life skill and leadership training for adolescent boys and girls.
• Conducting research and documentation on gender-based violence.