A just and inclusive society where widows and vulnerable female children live with dignity, safety, equal rights, and sustainable opportunities.
To amplify the voices of widows and vulnerable female children through protection and rights advocacy, psychosocial support, education and skills development, health and social protection linkages, and sustainable livelihood pathways-working with communities, government, and partners to remove the barriers that keep them poor, unsafe, and unheard.
VOWFCI exists to restore hope and secure lasting wellbeing for widows and female children by combining direct support with systems-change advocacy-addressing poverty, exclusion, harmful norms, unsafe work, and unequal access to services in line with the SDGs (1-16).
Protect widows and vulnerable female children from abuse, exploitation, discrimination, and harmful practices. Promote healing, wellbeing, and resilience for widows, girls, and women-led households. Enable education progression and sustainable livelihood pathways that break intergenerational poverty. Strengthen access to social protection and improve institutional responsiveness through advocacy and partnerships
Establish functional safeguarding and referral systems in the target communities/LGAs with clearly defined roles and accountability. Support increasing numbers of widows and vulnerable girls with integrated services (protection, wellbeing, education, livelihoods) while maintaining quality and confidentiality. Improve school retention and safe learning for supported girls through mentoring, re-entry support, and school safeguarding linkages. Increase economic independence for widows and young women through skills, enterprise support, and decent-work pathways. Expand access to social protection and essential services for women-led households through enrolment support and follow-up. Influence measurable changes in community norms and service delivery practices through evidence-based advocacy and stakeholder engagement. Build organisational sustainability through diversified revenue, strong governance, and transparent monitoring, evaluation and learning.
The Objects for which Voices of Widow's and Female Child Initiative (VOWFCI) is established are to: (i) Prevent and respond to abuse, exploitation, trafficking risks, harmful widowhood practices and discrimination affecting widows and vulnerable female children through survivor-centred safeguarding, safe reporting channels, case management and coordinated referrals; (ii) Promote and support widows' and girls' rights and access to justice through rights education, documentation support, mediation and legal referral services, including support to secure lawful entitlements relating to inheritance, property, maintenance and custody; (iii) reduce grief, trauma, stress and social isolation among widows and vulnerable girls through counselling, peer support groups, psychosocial first aid and linkages to appropriate health and social services; (iv) Improve school access, retention, learning support and protection for vulnerable girls through mentoring, re-entry pathways for out-of-school girls, school-based safeguarding linkages and targeted educational assistance where feasible; (v) Strengthen women's economic independence through employable skills training, entrepreneurship development, financial literacy and savings systems, job-readiness and placement linkages, and advocacy for safe, harassment-free and women-friendly work conditions that recognise care burdens; (vi) Reduce extreme hardship among women-led households by linking eligible beneficiaries to social protection and essential public services (including welfare/cash-transfer programmes, health and basic care), and by providing time-bound emergency support only where necessary and accountable; (vii) Amplify the voices of widows and female children by mobilising communities, traditional and faith leaders, institutions and media to reduce stigma, challenge harmful norms, promote child protection, and increase acceptance of girls' education and women's economic participation; viii) Ensure sustainable and measurable impact through strategic partnerships, evidence-based advocacy, strengthened referral systems, transparent governance, monitoring and evaluation, and community-led resilience approaches that enable programmes to endure and scale responsibly.
