What We Do
Women, youths and children face all manners of issues ranging from starvation, patriarchy to sexism and bias. When you add other factors, like migration, abuse, racial inequalities, the issues become compounded. The challenges that affect the future dignity of women are evident in the various ethno-cultural communities.
We support women who are:
- Single mothers
- Fleeing abuse and domestic violence
- New immigrants
- Marginalized youths
We focus on building connections that lead to transformative potential, and stimulate new thinking to uncover ways we can better women in the community.
Why We Do It
Knowledge and access to resources is a necessary condition of empowerment, however those alone are not sufficient. Women must also have the ability to identify and utilize those resources, the capacity to define their own goals and act upon them. This is the foundation of empowerment we create as an organization. Therefore, our strategic priority is to address these four core concepts of empowerment ‐ resources, knowledge, will, and capacity.
We work tirelessly to close the gaps that exist for marginalised women to achieve social and economic inclusion. We operate from the understanding that social development for women and supporting them to reach their full potential is the key to improving the well-being of the family as well as every individual in the society. We remove barriers to access supports by reaching into the community rather than wait for those who need to come to us. We provide a platform that helps women to navigate systems so they can move forward on their path to self-sufficiency. We provide services and supports geared towards enhancing the lives of marginalised women, BIPOC women, women experiencing abuse, immigrant women, youths, Children and women who need support with overcoming isolation.
Our Initiative
Our programs and services are designed to address different dimensions of women empowerment, to support marginalised women, BIPOC women, women experiencing abuse, immigrant women and women who need support with overcoming isolation. Our guiding principles stem from the pillars of social economic development:
- Gender structures potentially produce system inequalities between men and women; and women often are more susceptible to and are disproportionately affected by these inequalities.
- Investing in women potentially unleashes economic growth and poverty reduction.
- Information is important in settlement. Making sure that new immigrant women are connected early to settlement supports goes far to increase their success and full participation in the community. By investing in early information sharing initiatives, we can ensure a great degree of success amongst newcomer women.
An affordable, good quality child care system is also needed for women to succeed. When they are confident that their children are being well taken care of, they can find opportunities to participate in the community, and be productive. This in turn enables business to succeed when they have productive employees. When businesses succeed, the economy of a community improves.
- A safe affordable housing is important for women to achieve self-sufficiency and function as productive members of society. It provides a base for families to nurture their children, build community relationships.
- There are other investments in women that contribute to social and economic empowerment. They include job creation; training and education; entrepreneurship; poverty reduction; promotion of healthy, active living; and mentorships for participation in the community.
We reach into the communities through natural leaders to connect with those we need to work with. We provide safe and trusting partnerships with the women who access our services and work with them to access services under these broad categories:
- Settlement supports for new immigrants
- Mental health services for women
- Financial literacy services for women
- Programs for women fleeing abuse
- Supports for BIPOC women
We deliver our core services through workshops, training, resource development and community connections, consistently measuring the process to identify needs and develop measures that promote the empowerment approach.
Our Approach
We connect with communities and reach out to women who possibly need to access resources and enable them break barriers. We access and accept funding, foodstuff from sponsors, government, organization, and private donors to help achieve our goals.
Communities
We build support across organisations, communities, and causes because the challenges we face can only be solved together. We partner with communities, groups, relevant sectors, citizens, and government to for greater impact. We do our best to grow a community of people who are impacting the lives of women
Get involved
Volunteers are the cornerstone of our organisation. Volunteering with Guiding Light Women Empowerment (TGLWES) is a life-enriching, rewarding experience, because supporting TGLWES supports the community we all share. We value the contribution of our volunteers a great deal and are thankful for all of the compassion and energy that they bring to our organization. Send us an email if you wish to volunteer with us.
Help When You Need It
We build support across organisations, communities, and causes because the challenges we face can only be solved together. We partner with communities, groups, relevant sectors, citizens, and government for greater impact. We do our best to grow a community of people who are impacting the lives of women.
Food Hamper Program
The goal is to provide and deliver food assistance to families who need it. Food is a basic necessity of life, so tackling hunger is an important aspect of empowerment and building resilience. Our food hamper program sources food rescue, donations; provides food hampers, gift cards to families; and in some cases deliver food hampers and gift cards to their homes. This is a program that started with the impact of Covid-19 in communities but quickly grew as more people connected with our organization with a need. Clients who connect are either able to pick up what food is available or prefer to make their own food choices with a gift card. Food and food-related assistance is at the core of the program to address hunger in our communities and break the cycle of hunger and poverty.
The four 4 aspects of food security are availability, access, stability and utilization. TGLWES’s strategy in food assistance programming is to explore food sources –Availability; obtain and disburse them consistently – Access and stability; and provide families the opportunity to enjoy nutritious meals –Utilization. We look forward to increasing our capacity to reach more people in our community with more opportunities.
