Overview

Flourish: Empowering Rural Muslim Women with a sense of Worth, Strength and to be a Positive influence in their communities

The Flourish program is for all women, with the main focus of this program in rural settings. Many of the women work as farmers, with their husbands often in Jakarta seeking to find work, and generally they would see their husbands only a few times a year when they come home. Because of this, women are often bringing up their children on their own.

The purpose of Flourish is to inspire and empower women to realise that they are valuable, capable, and that they can live a life of purpose and benefit to their family and community. Strong, healthy, positive and purposeful women can change their environments for the better, even in difficult situations.

The Need

The Flourish program seeks to build up the women by instilling in them value, self-confidence and worth into them. Often the women do not have a strong sense of their value, because of how they are treated, and often others dominating them. Some women feel trapped and controlled.

These women need a safe environment to share their stories and learn tools about how to better cope in their situations. The Flourish program equips women with tools on how to manage their emotions, recognize their strengths and weaknesses and respond to situations in a positive way instead of negatively reacting. We have helped women learn to set healthier boundaries for themselves and in raising their children.

Our Vision

The goal of seeing strong purposeful women raised up is to then see whole families and children begin to develop so that communities can be healthier and empowered to live better lives. We aim is to train up many women to be Flourish Trainers who can then teach the Flourish course throughout their region we are working in Central Java, and beyond.

How we achieve this

Flourish is a 9 – Session Life Skills development program that empowers women. The 9 Sessions lasts for 2 hours each, with all the participants who finish Flourish receiving a certificate.

For some women it is the first certificate that they have ever received, as many did not finish school, which is one way to place value on these women. Through the encouraging and inspiring videos and life stories that are shared in Flourish, along with Role plays and problem solving real life scenarios that are indicative of their culture, the women learn to deal with difficult issues in healthy ways. This approach is very interactive and is suitable for illiterate women. With our trainers speaking the local language, they can connect with and empathise with the women on a deeper level which really opens the women up to share their challenges.

Our Program in Meeting these Needs & Issues

The project has been running for about 10 months in this region. Many women have been through the course and have reported improvements in communication within their families, as well as experiencing a new level of confidence. The Flourish program is very well accepted, and many women want to join the next course. Some of the structure of the course includes:

Monthly programs 9 x 2hr session completed over 2 weekends
6-15 women (mostly Madrasah teachers or farmers)
New group every month, with over 120 women per year
In addition to the above, there are now 4 local facilitators (from the 120) who are equipped and trained to lead and run the programs themselves