Watch the video of the ‘WISE Girls’ program in Za’atari and Azraq Camps

Gender norms largely preclude the girls’ voice and agency in their community. Girls have far more limited mobility than boys, especially from puberty and in refugee communities, as these are not safe or supportive of girls’ wellbeing. Girls are expected to show almost complete obedience to their parents’ decisions, even when those decisions dictate the trajectory of girls’ futures.

Given Mercy Corps’ focus on girls’ empowerment and gender mainstreaming in positive parenting and family strengthening activities, the WISE Girls program starts off with designing and maintaining safe spaces for girls and women in the ISHRAK centers in Za’atari camp. The centers serve adolescent girls (11 – 19), caregivers, and adolescent boys through conducting girl-led activities. Furthermore, the WISE Girls activities utilize a human-centric approach to conduct participatory research that explores girls’ wellbeing.

With the support from the Government of Taiwan, Mercy Corps is partnering with adolescent girls between 11 and 19-years-old through the WISE Girls program in Za’atari and Azraq Camps. Mercy Corps seeks to empower adolescent girls by training female peer educators on providing Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) information to younger girls through simple approaches such as story-telling. The program aims to provide reproductive health and psychosocial support for young girls through co-designing a network of safe spaces and a girl-led program that supports girls’ agency and rights. Even in times of lockdown, Mercy Corps staff continued to provide remote psychosocial support and necessary reproductive health information to ‘WISE girls’ participants via WhatsApp groups.
  
Through this video, we showcase successful stories of brave refugee girls who share their testimony about how the WISE Girls program has built their skills and characters, as well as of the younger girls they trained.