Somali Danish Women in Action

Somali Danish Women in Action, abbreviated as SDWA, is a voluntary organization with non-profit making, non-governmental and non-partisan with no religious or political affiliation. The establishment of the organization comes after a group of Somali-Danish women, based in Denmark, held an assembly meeting on the drought crisis that hit most of the regions in Somalia and affected nearly 2.5 million  people who are now at risk of starvation. The group of Diaspora women who are humanitarian pioneers led by Hawa Abdirashid organized the assembly meeting to discuss the establishment of a women-led Diaspora organization on the 4th of November 2021 in Nyborg, Denmark. As a result of the discussions during the assembly meeting, SDWA was founded to respond to the need for humanitarian aid, gender inequalities, gender violence, and gender inequalities in Somalia. The primary purpose is to support women, youth, and children in Somalia’s communities by providing both relief and gender-mainstreamed developmental programs through educational capacity building, peacebuilding, and conflict resolution.

SDWA is headquartered in Nyborg, Denmark, and moreover, it is registered with the Federal Government of Somalia as an international organization. SDWA has local NGO partners in Somalia’s different federal states of Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hir-shabeele, and the Banaadir region. Legally, the organization is registered at the NGO registration authority in Denmark as an oversea humanitarian Diaspora entity that will be registered with its Ministry of Interior’s NGOs registration board as an international NGO.

The decades-old conflicts in Somalia and insecurity complemented by natural disasters such as droughts, cyclones, and floods have made Somalia a volatile humanitarian crisis and a difficult place to live. The country has one of the largest internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the world in which women constitute 60% of the displaced population. In Somalia, women and girls are among the most underprivileged people and their life remains challenging in the country that ranks fourth lowest for gender equality globally, and maternal and infant mortality rates are some of the highest in the world.

Nevertheless, many women in Somalia suffer immense psychosocial distress due to the loss of close relatives or being torn apart from their kinship support system and are obliged to keep their households running under very difficult circumstances. Many girls are exposed to negative social/cultural practices such as early marriage that are prevalent and pervasive gender-based violence (GBV), mostly related to
physical assault and intimate partner violence (IPV). According to UN and other humanitarian reports, an estimated 91% of women aged 15-19 have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM) which has physiological, sexual, and health complications. Other surveys indicate that three out of five children are out of school and boys are often favored over girls. Furthermore, the illiteracy rate among women in IDP communities is estimated at 76% and 59% for non-displaced compared with 60% for IDP men and 39% for non-displaced men.

The expertise of the Somali Diaspora on these problems cannot be underestimated, and their experience can be utilized to start the much-needed peacebuilding, women and youth empowerment, promotion of human rights and gender equality, advocacy, protection, and humanitarian endeavors. Thus, SDWA being an organization led by Somali- Danish women with sound educational backgrounds and experience is potentially vital for the donors’ engagement as a development partner for the country of origin, Somalia, in terms of reaching the vulnerable and marginalized groups among the Somali community, particularly women and youth.

The Overall Goal
SDWA's aim is to create educated, economically stable, and healthily educationally sound women and girls by providing promotion of gender equality as well as women empowerment programs and gender mainstreamed short-term relief programs.
Specific goals:
● Ensure female involvement, in climate change negotiations, resource management, and development of policies that address climate change and ensure such policies are gender-sensitively designed.
● Advocate for women’s access to resources, and opportunities to participate in the mitigation of climate change effects by persuading decision-makers about the environmental degradation and climate change effects on women.
● To provide climate change technologies and initiatives that enhance sustainable and renewable energy sources designed to reflect women’s needs, knowledge, and social roles.
● Promotion of gender equality and women empowerment programs designed to capacitate women enabling them actively to participate in disaster responses; building resilience; securing land and inheritance rights, food, and resources; and ending energy poverty.
● Also, the thematic areas of protection, gender, and environment will be integrated with other programs and women will be educated on environmental conservation to ensure that environmental protection is practiced at the family level.
● To Improve the living conditions of Somali communities, and in particular women and girls among the displaced, returnees, rural community, and poorer groups by providing asset creation and livelihood supporting projects of both recovery and resilience building.
● To improve the drought and water shortage devastated rural and IDP’s community access to quality safe water, sanitation, and hygiene by providing WASH projects of both construction and rehabilitation of the existing water sources. 
● To target livestock and agricultural productivity complemented by the introduction of modernized livestock and farming techniques aimed at improving productivity.
● To contribute positively to the fight against HIV.AIDS pandemic, eradication of all forms of FGM.
● To enhance rural outreached communities and IDPs in the urbanizing centers and cities in Somalia access to primary health care and nutritional services by providing supporting projects aimed at transforming the traditional livestock into a modern responsive,
sustainable, and environmentally friendly engine to improve the rural community’s livelihoods, health, and nutritional standards.
● Improve formal and nonformal education for disadvantaged people in the coverage area.
● Providing Research, analyses, and situational and food security assessments in Somalia.
● Capacity-building skills and networking programs.
● Advocacy for human rights, peace, development, legal reforms, and local organizations to get funds for their respective development nurturing and livelihood improvement programs.

Objectives
● To provide relief assistance to the vulnerable underprivileged Somali women and vulnerable community groups including IDP’s and returnees at the time of drought and famine.
● To assist the vulnerable community through the provision of developmental services such as access of education, health, nutrition, WASH, and livelihood programs through protection and advocacy.
● To enhance peace-building efforts through dialogue and negotiation.
● To enhance safe drinking water, improved sanitation, and good standard of hygiene behavior.
● To protect and promote environmental protection to the community through awareness, mobilization, and sensitization.
● To promote and encourage the formulation and implementation of policies and programs that are necessary for the integration and peaceful coexistence among the clans of Somalia.
● To promote and work for the development of policies, bylaws, and acts that ensure respect for human rights and assure justice to all in Somalia and within the autonomous administrations.
● To disseminate and emphasize peace values and basic human rights throughout the community grassroots.
● To conduct policy research, provide capacity-building skills and advice, and disseminate information on all aspects of peace being the prioritized instruments.
● To promote and support the development of regional principles and legally binding instruments seeking to promote sustainable development through research, consultation, and information.
● To efficiently participate, lobby, and advocate for the implementation of the plans of action on peace and democracy, and security in Somalia.
SDWA vision
“An environment where women are free from all forms of inequalities, risks of violence, abuse, as well as other harmful practices and they, are active participants in leadership, economic growth, as well as other social sectors and their contribution to the society at large, is fully realized”.

SDWA mission
To ensure that the vision is achieved, SDWA’s mission is to promote Somali women's participation in leadership, economic growth, and policy decision-making, and to provide capacity-building and other empowerment programs for women to enable them to contribute to society and play a major role in the leadership, private and public entrepreneurship, and political decision making yet remaining accountable to all stakeholders (community, government, and partners) as an organization.
Values
SDWA’s core values are:
● Integrity
● Indiscrimination
● Impartiality
● Transparency & Accountability
The values and guiding principles
SDWA will create and support an environment that fosters accountability, respect, and a holistic manner towards beneficiaries and staff within the organization, cooperation, trust, caring, commitment, continuous improvement, and holistic health toward our clients, community members, and each other.

Professional Strength:
● Highly qualified, experienced, and devoted professionals and board members, and staff
● Adaptability to cope with and meet the requirements of the diverse socio-cultural environment of Europe, and Somalia
● Support of local people
● Acceptance as a representative of the common people of the area.
● Extensive network to undertake initiatives at the grassroots
● Availability of state-of-the-art modern equipment and tools
● Strong partnerships for undertaking innovative initiatives