The Women’s Program (Protection, Empowerment, and Dignity)

The Culture and Free Thought Association (CFTA) bases its work on a set of integrated programs that reflect its vision of empowering communities and strengthening their resilience, while ensuring equitable access to services, particularly for the most vulnerable groups in the Gaza Strip. As part of its efforts to enhance its interventions, CFTA adopted an integrated programmatic approach in 2024 that restructured its services, thereby improving response efficiency and expanding its impact on the lives of both female and male beneficiaries.

Women’s Program is a core program within CFTA, working to enhance the Association’s response to the needs of women and girls—including those with disabilities and survivors of gender-based violence (GBV). It applies a participatory, human rights-based, woman- and survivor-centered approach, ensuring their access to an integrated package of services that promotes protection, dignity, and resilience.

The  program focuses on providing health, psychological, social, legal, and multisectoral protection services, as well as empowering women and girls through awareness-raising, capacity-building, psychosocial support, and economic empowerment, thereby enhancing their ability to address challenges and cope with crises. Furthermore, the program is committed to providing a safe and supportive environment, improving service quality, and building  staff capacities to ensure that beneficiaries can access services without discrimination, with due consideration for the needs of the most vulnerable groups, particularly women with disabilities.

As part of its humanitarian response, the program implements a range of multisectoral projects in partnership with  supporting organizations and international donors, addressing the growing needs of communities affected by crises. These interventions include protection services, psychosocial support, gender-based violence (GBV) case management, referral and case management, legal counseling and mediation, community awareness-raising activities to strengthen access to essential health and legal services. These interventions contribute to enhancing safety and dignity, strengthening community support networks, and enabling women, girls, and affected families to address everyday risks and challenges more safely and effectively.

The  program also focuses on empowering women and girls, particularly survivors of violence, by raising their awareness of their rights and available protection mechanisms, and by ensuring the inclusion of women with disabilities in various activities and services, thereby strengthening their independence and active participation in society. These efforts are complemented by awareness-raising and counseling sessions, as well as capacity-building for health and social sector workers through training and professional supervision. In addition, the program organizes advocacy and community awareness campaigns, most notably the 16 Days against Gender-Based Violence, which aims to raise awareness of gender-related issues and promote women’s role in community participation and decision-making.

Health and Women Program Projects
The Health and Women Program focuses on providing an integrated response to the needs of women and girls, particularly in humanitarian emergency settings, through the provision of specialized services that promote protection, health, psychosocial well-being, and economic empowerment, ensuring a comprehensive and sustainable response for the most vulnerable groups.

Target Groups:

Women and girls.

Survivors of gender-based violence (GBV).

Women with disabilities.

Men and boys participating in awareness-raising activities.

Affected families.

Displaced communities.

Persons with disabilities and older persons within humanitarian interventions.

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