Women’s Rights Awareness Programme {WRAP} is a national, non-governmental {NGO}, non-profit, human rights organization that exists to identify and educate the community on the causes and effects of gender violence and child abuse, and to offer services that address the needs of abused and violated women and children such as provision of alternative accommodation and related supportive services like legal aid/advice, medical care, trauma counseling, marital counseling, mediation, reconciliation, resettlement and re-integration.
WRAP was registered under the Societies Act as a non-governmental, non-profit making and non-political organization and become operational in 1994; starting off by catering for the needs of abused and violated women and their children. In 2002, WRAP extended service provision to cater for unaccompanied minors whose rights have been violated; WRAP is also registered under the Charitable Children Regulation as a Charitable Children’s Institution recognized by the Government of Kenya.
WRAP also addresses itself to the advancement and protection of women’s and children’s rights through such strategies as research, awareness creation and advocacy/ lobbying.
Through research and advocacy, WRAP also strives to:
- Advocate for the enactment of appropriate legislation, and formulation of appropriate policy;
- Involve communities in identifying the causes and effects of gender violence and child abuse, and in determining best practices of diminishing violence against children and women;
- Work with communities to establish sustainable, community-owned GBV-intervention strategies.
- WRAP also has programmes that target men in need of counseling, troubled marriages {marital counseling}, policy makers {lobbying} and the public-at-large. The programme is managed by an executive arm comprising of the Chairperson, Secretary, Treasurer (including their deputies) and a Board of Directors that acts on an advisory level, besides formulating policies and guidelines.
Some of our current objectives require once:
- To develop WRAP’s organizational capacity to provide safe and secure shelters and related supportive services for abused women and children all over Kenya;
- To enhance women’s access to legal services by providing legal aid to clients; helping them with litigation, providing legal advice and rights education;
- To increase public awareness on and to encourage proactive Gender-Based Violence and Child Abuse intervention through sensitization and human rights education;
- To encourage networking amongst Human Rights and Civil Society Organizations dealing with Women and Children;
- To carry out extensive research on social and legal issues affecting the Human Rights of Women and Children in Kenya;
- To develop an effective monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system for WRAP;
- To lobby advocate for necessary amendments of various laws touching on the rights of Women and Children;
- To mainstream gender and child rights in all WRAP’s programmes;
- To economically empower women affected by Gender Based Violence so that they can be independent;
- To raise WRAP’s profile by being involved in all activities that affects the rights of Women and Children nationwide.