Self-Advocacy for Women & Teens with Disabilities

We appreciate your support for this very important program designed to help the 400 women with disabilities who participate in our employment programs protect themselves and/or seek help against harmful, abusive, violent or exploitative relationships. It also seeks to create a change in the participants’ knowledge, ability and attitude toward a better understanding of themselves, relationships, and sexuality. It operates through small facilitated groups in a safe space using a curriculum and hands-on activities designed for easy assimilation by people with cognitive disabilities.

We are still fundraising for this program in order to be able to hold it for 45 women in our employment centers in Kfar Saba, Rishon LeZion, Rosh HaAyin. Concurrently, we are raising money to offer it to approximately 30 girls/young women, ages 10 to 21, who attend the Chimes Israel after school program for youth with disabilities at the Enoch School (Tel Aviv) and Amal School (Holon). The next population to reach will be Arab women with disabilities in our employment program in Taibe, Israel. All of the potential participants are living with disabilities such as developmental delays, autism, genetic diseases and syndromes, and physical challenges. Some have additional characteristics such as attention and concentration difficulties, challenging behavior, and more. 

The overall objective is to create a change in the participants’ knowledge, ability and attitude toward a better understanding of themselves, relationships and sexuality, and the ability to protect themselves and/or seek help against harmful, abusive, violent or exploitative relationships. The program is critical to reducing violence against women through:

• Educating on femininity and sexuality, as it pertains to their relationships and social circles.
• Helping them identify potentially harmful, violent or exploitative relationships.
• Conveying tools and skills to enhance personal protection and self-empowerment.
• Familiarizing them with external resources that support women in abusive situations.

We had a test pilot of the project at the end of 2021, which was funded by the L’Oréal Fund for Women. The pre- and post-program questionnaire results enabled us to understand the knowledge assimilation, attitude shifts, and perceived abilities changes (empowerment). Our conclusion is that all the women experienced some type of change as a result of participating in the workshop. Some of the changes were sweeping (seen in almost all of them), and some were expressed differently from one to the other. In accordance with the workshop's objectives for creating a change knowledge, ability and attitude, it is evident that all participants had gone through a process and are in a different place from the initial starting point. It is important to note that beyond the group analysis, there were other individual changes in different aspects for each of the participants. These changes are reflected in the discourse in the workshop itself, seen numerically in our quantitative analysis, and in every woman’s specific questionnaire response.

For a few of the participants, the program was indeed transformational in that it made an indelible impact in the area of abuse. After a session on violence prevention and tools for identifying and dealing with dangerous situations, one of the participants realized that she had been abused and reported the incident. A participant, who lived at home with her brother and mother, had been beaten by her brother during the Covid-19 lockdowns. As a result of the workshop, she told the group that she now understood that she should never be treated that way, and was ready to stand up for herself. A quiet, smart young woman with Down syndrome experienced a humiliating incident while at a special program for people with disabilities in the army. Traumatized, she left the army and kept to herself in the sheltered work factory since the incident. The pilot women’s empowerment workshop seemed to be exactly what she needed. She didn’t miss a single meeting and participated in such a robust way that her family was astonished. In one of the sessions, she expressed that her very participation in the course was helping her confidence.

We hope you will help transform the lives of this vulnerable population by supporting this project.