Gender
Women are the world's greatest untapped resource for development. Healthy, educated, empowered women generate money for their communities and bring up children who survive and thrive. But discrimination still holds back millions of women, preventing them from fulfilling their potential.
For every year a girl spends in school, her family’s income will increase by 20 per cent. But there are still 41 million girls who don’t get the chance to go to school.
UN Women
In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women. This was a truly historic occasion, and one which VSO hopes will mark a real step forward for millions of women around the world.
However, a new agency is not enough. Previous UN women's agencies were prevented from achieving their goals because they lacked resources and power. VSO want to make sure that UN Women remains focused. We'll be making sure UN Women gets the powers and funding it needs to make life better for millions of women worldwide.
Gender success stories
- Challenging traditional gender roles by lobbying the National Football Association (90KB)
- Position on the empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication (274KB)
- Changing attitudes of law enforcers towards vulnerable groups (87KB)
- Peru’s Community Defenders seek justice (131KB)
- RAISA programme aims to reduce the burden of care on women and girls (140KB)
