Nicaragua

We are helping people living in poverty, especially rural women, secure access to and control over natural resources, in particular land and water. Our programme provides support to adopt sustainable agriculture production techniques.

Our actions include:

• Improving the knowledge and skills of farmers and their families, and facilitating access to equipment
• Supporting the development of value chains and/or small businesses and access to markets
• Raising community awareness of their rights to access land and natural resources, especially for women and youth
• Supporting communities affected by dispossession or deterioration of natural resources as a result of the actions of third parties
• Advocating for public policies that improve vulnerable people’s access to resources

We work to ensure women are free from violence and its associated risks. We use a community-based approach for violence prevention, raising awareness on the rights of women.

Our actions include:

• Improving women’s knowledge and understanding of their rights
• Creating community structures that act to prevent gender-based violence.
• Support women victims of violence e.g. women’s networks, legal and psychological counsellors
• Promoting leadership and meaningful participation of women in community and other groups
• Advocating for the involvement of key institutions in the prevention of gender based violence e.g. churches, schools, police etc.

We work to ensure that vulnerable communities have the necessary capacity to respond to and recover from disasters. Our work has a strong emphasis on the protection of groups who are more vulnerable to crises such as women, children and people with disabilities.

Our actions include:

• Improving knowledge of individuals to identify risks of disasters, and promoting emergency preparedness capacities at community level
• Organising community and municipal committees for disaster response
• Supporting communities to access basic emergency equipment and develop early warning systems to respond to emergency more effectively
• Supporting civil society to coordinate with the government institutions for better disaster risk management strategies
• Providing emergency assistance when disaster strikes.