WomenIntroduction
WATEO targets women in rural areas in Iraq and the Middle East. These women are generally marginalized within the communities, to include: single and divorced women, widows, uneducated women, and otherwise marginalized women. These women do not have access to capacity building programs.
WATEO target these women, because women are the key to securing communities. Women are the vehicles for improving the quality of life within their families. They are responsible for providing environmental services for their families and securing their communities. By educating women about their role in securing their communities, they are greatly able to contribute to building a more secure society, as well as pass on their education and experiences to their children.
Women are the primary users of the environmental resources and they are the principal providers of the environmental services within their communities. By building their capacity to manage these resources and provide these services, they will be able to increase the security and stability of the community’s use of these resources and services.
WATEO works with the tribal leaders, senior women, teenagers, and children. The programs are essentially built around women empowerment, however, for this to be effective, other members of the community must also be educated on the role that women play in providing a secure and stable society. WATEO and WOMEN – WATEO’s Approach
WATEO’s approach takes into account the religious, societal, and political dynamics that shape the rural communities. Through community capacity building programs, WATEO helps to define and establish the role of women in securing environmental resources and services, as well as the community as a whole. WATEO’s experts utilize the local language that is known and accepted by the local communities, as well as utilize examples from Islamic history where women have played a crucial role in managing water resources. Through these capacity building programs, WATEO is able to create a sense of local ownership in “securing” the communities, with the support of the local tribal leaders.
As part of the capacity building programs, WATEO implements a training-the-trainer program, where local experts will train women on how to provide environmental resources and services for their families and communities, as well as community security practices. WATEO’s goal is to recruit female instructors, tribal/religious leaders and other female volunteers in the regions of interest. Once trained, these trainers then visit the regions of interest and hole environmental awareness programs (EAP) for the women in the communities and the tribal leaders. 
WATEO believes that a holistic approach is necessary for effectiveness within their capacity building programs. In order to empower the women in these rural communities, WATEO conducts workshops, not just with the rural, uneducated, and marginalized women, but also with the tribal leaders and senior women in the communities. These leaders and senior women attend workshops that educate them on how to include the rural and marginalize women of their community and the importance of their role in securing the community.
WATEO conducts follow up visits to the communities and regions to assess the impacts of the capacity building program and to see how the EAP has helped to change the attitudes and behaviors of the women and tribal leaders in these communities. 
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WATEO's Arabic Language and Arabic Culture ProgramUnited Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)UNEP references WATEO's work:
The First Progress ReportThe Second Progress ReportSuccess Stories |
