Through its women’s empowerment initiatives, WCCN works with Nicaraguan women’s organizations in exploring new ways to eliminate traditional patterns of economic, political, and gender exclusion as well as violence against women.

Experience has shown that while most Nicaraguan women face many obstacles in their struggle for equality, rural women are often at the greatest disadvantage. Recently, WCCN has focused its efforts on partnering with Nicaraguan grassroots organizations that help rural women gain access to social and economic resources. These organizations take multi-faceted approaches to women’s empowerment, which include education, skills training and consciousness-raising.

Central to WCCN’s women’s empowerment initiatives is the belief that women deserve the opportunity to pull themselves out of poverty. They have the right to own land, to obtain an education, to be producers, to have adequate healthcare, and to provide for themselves and their families without the threat of violence.

Each summer, WCCN coordinates a study tour [1]that offers participants the opportunity to see and hear directly from the many creative women’s groups and leaders in Nicaragua who are empowering women through different, but complementary paths. The intertwining personal, economic, and socio-political aspects of the empowerment process are explored as the tours meet with a myriad of different actors in the Nicaraguan Women’s Movement [2].