At the Humanitarian Women’s Network, our mission is to achieve an environment where women are able to work in the humanitarian industry free from discrimination, harassment and abuse.
Founded in 2015, HWN has grown from a small handful of women in Guinea to over 10,000 women in over 100 UN/NGO agencies in over 50 countries. We focus on professional development, peer support and global advocacy to realise institutional and cultural change for female aid professionals.
HWN is managed by a team of volunteers who are all busy, professional women. Because of how big and vibrant our community is, it takes a lot of time and energy to manage! For this reason, we humbly ask that if, like us, you are committed to achieving a safe work environment for humanitarian women, you consider making a contribution to our network so that we can continue to put in the time and research to achieve this objective.
As our HWN community continues to grow, we are always on the lookout for new ways to support our fellow humanitarian women. Here are some of our most recent initiatives:
We launched our own website to keep our fellow humanitarian women updated on what we are doing.
We started a mentorship platform to connect experienced female professionals to individuals seeking guidance and advice. We currently have 126 paired mentors-mentees on our platform from all over the world.
We created a Market Mondays sub-group on our HWN Facebook page for women to promote their businesses
We launched a series of webinars and talks on themes including women’s role in the COVID-19 pandemic, effective mentorship, and racial justice in aid work.
NEW! We will be launching a follow-up survey in Q2 2021, as a follow-up to our landmark 2016 survey on discrimination, harassment and abuse of female aid workers. We will be able to show what, if anything, has changed for women in the aid sector, accounting for recent policy changes, and providing insight for future action.
Every contribution we receive, no matter how small, will make an enormous difference to our work. Thank you for your support!