Our approach:
ENABLING WOMEN TO EMPOWER THEMSELVES
Focus on Women
All that we are doing is about one thing; about lifting women, building women, elevating women’s understanding, capacity, and ability to be the women they were created to be, for themselves, their families, and their communities.
Our mission is executed through programs that bring women together in activities where we not only instill skills and impart practical tools to positively impact their daily lives, but more importantly, working alongside one another, we’re planting and cultivating seeds of truth regarding the significance (power), value, and role of women in humanity, that individually and collectively we may contribute our part(s) to right-side up our world.
The programs are about creating vehicles for women to discover the gift that they are and the gifts that they embody; to enable them to develop and employ those gifts in such a way as to release those gifts, that they might then follow the path of destiny that their gift creates for them.
Our goal is that every woman develops the constitution and capacity to speak and act on her own behalf, being the agent of change for her world.
Grass-Roots
Who would be willing to dispute the undeniable influence of motherhood upon society, of a mother upon her family, of a mother upon her grown children? What is more grassroots than motherhood; than a mother’s heart of love and experienced wisdom?
As women, the Maman Shujaa identify with their powerful influence upon all aspects of our society. That is why our focus is on how we as women can influence the Africa we hold in our hearts and the world beyond.
Millions and millions of dollars are spent in the domain of Gender Violence in DRC. There are countless male-dominated international and local NGOs working in DRC, supposedly to impact the cancer of marginalization against women. But as women, we strongly protest. Gender Violence is not a project! It’s a historically present moral outrage that demands a shift in approach.
We focus on putting funds directly in the hands of those affected and most able to effect the positive change that our nation is dying without; enabling and empowering the very force willing, able, and determined to right them. It’s time to empower and enable the Maman Shujaa.
Partnerships
Hero Women Rising is the U.S. based nonprofit that directs funds to grassroots, women-led projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Our main partner, Synergy of Congolese Women’s Associations (SAFECO), is a group of local women-led associations.
SAFECO was founded in 2012 to increase the capacity, confidence, and ability of women to set a new course for their communities and their nation. Their synergy of women’s associations takes a holistic approach to development. SAFECO’s first priorities are preserving the richness of Congo’s greatest resource; its people. “We are for prudent, measured development; development that holds people, communities, and the environment in the highest regard. Therefore it is our bent to move forward with prudence, in wisdom, with a mind that not only cares about Congo’s future, but one that is mindful of our world-stewardship of the vast resources of this richest nation in the world; setting a new global standard for Developed Nation status.”
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Maman Shujaa means “Hero Women” in Swahili. The Maman Shujaa are the heart of SAFECO and all the work that Hero Women Rising does. This group was founded by Neema Namadamu and was the founding group of the Synergy of Congolese Women’s Associations.