Empowering Iraqi Widows to Thrive (EIWT) Project

Start Date: September 2010

End Date: *February 2013 (extended date)

The Iraq Foundation (IF) was awarded grant from the US Department of State’s Office of Global Women's Issues (S/GWI) for a two-year project to improve the quality of life of marginalized widows in disadvantaged areas and equip them to be productive contributing participants in the Iraqi economy and Iraqi society. The project will be implemented in the Baghdad, Ninawah, Maysan, Basra and Dhi Qar governorates of Iraq.

Building on the succes of IF's Widows Empowerment Project, which was implimented from May 2008 to May 2010, EIWT will continue the effort to assist the thousands of widows living in Iraq continue to struggle.

With the support of the Iraqi Ministry of Health and Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, as well as local municipal and district councils and local hospitals, the EIWT project is designed to meet the diverse needs of Iraq disadvantaged widows. The project will operate at two levels:

1) It will provide life skills education and education in women’s rights and citizenship to a large group of widows. This training will improve the participants’ quality of life and increase their participation in the public domain.

2) A smaller group of widows will be selected to receive vocational and entrepreneurial skills training tailored to the specific needs of their location.

In conjunction with the education and training components, the project will provide on-going support and mentoring to “graduating” widows.

The project has the following objectives:

Objective (1) Increase women’s participation in public life as confident and informed citizens with constitutionally mandated rights. Activities will include: conducting women’s rights and citizenship education courses delivered to 1,120 widows in seven locations.

Objective (2) seeks to improve the quality of life by improving family health and family well-being, interpersonal relations, and coping capacities. Activities will include conducting education training on life skills education, including family health and wellbeing, interpersonal relations, and life skills.

Objective (3) will focus on empowering widows to participate effectively in the economy and achieve sustainable income generation. Activities will encompass multiple Vocational Skills Training program in 7 locations throughout Iraq, tailored to meet community needs. 

Objective (4) will enable widows to gain greater access to social services and to the income generating opportunities available in their communities and achieve family stability.  Activities to accomplish this objective will include a comprehensive mentoring program to assist widows in the development and realization of individual life goals, accessing social services and government benefits, and to connect beneficiaries to locally available financial resources and employment opportunities. Through this mentoring and the development of new life and vocational skills, this project is designed to be highly sustainable, creating lasting benefits for the widows it serves.