This Week Without Violence 2024, World YWCA is partnering with YWCA USA to spotlight financial abuse as a form of violence. Each day of the week, we will focus on different aspects of financial abuse, bringing attention to its various forms and impacts.
Join us from October 21-26,2024, under the theme ‘Financial Trauma: From Abuse to Safety and Justice for Women,’ This year tool is designed to support deeper understanding for women and young women globally. It highlights financial abuse and provides actionable solutions to inform, protect and guide you toward achieving financial safety, independence and justice. This tool helps advocate for financial equity and raises awareness about how financial challenges disproportionately affect women’s rights and gender equality worldwide. With a global, intergenerational focus, the tool breaks down key elements of financial trauma to generate awareness and critical thinking through a solution-oriented approach.
Join us in the fight for a safer, more inclusive world in 2024. Don’t forget to engage on social media using the hashtags #YWCALeaders #WeekWithoutViolence2024 #WWV24
Since 1904, the World YWCA-YMCA Week of Prayer has been a cherished tradition, uniting communities across the globe in prayer and reflection. Each year, during the second week of November, this observance invites people to focus on a theme that reflects our world’s ongoing realities and needs.
From 10-16 November 2024, the theme “Moving with Faith Through the Elements” encourages reflection on the spiritual significance of water, earth, fire, and wind, emphasising faith as a guiding force through life’s challenges. This year’s Week of Prayer occurs at a time when global crises are ever-present—wars in the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe, systemic oppression affecting parts of the Americas and Southeast Asia, and worsening environmental disasters displacing families and threatening livelihoods.
These struggles remind us of the fragility of life and the urgent need for healing and justice. As communities come together this week, they are invited to draw on their faith, foster resilience, and unite to pursue peace and renewal for all.
As we edge closer to World YWCA Day on 24th April 2024, the anticipation and excitement within our community grow. This year, we stand at a pivotal juncture, marking nearly two centuries of relentless advocacy, community engagement, and the promotion of gender equality by the YWCA movement. It’s a reflection of our collective resilience and the unyielding spirit of YWCA leaders worldwide.
The theme for World YWCA Day 2024, “Resist, Reclaim, Revolutionise: No To Rollbacks,” is a direct call for every YWCA leader and supporter to stand against those trying to undo the hard-won progress towards gender equality. We are thrilled to announce that our #WorldYWCADay2024 toolkit is now available in English, French, and Spanish!
Access the tool to find more information on the theme, ideas to mark the day, and resources to engage in social media with visuals and social media covers.
Don’t forget to engage in social media using the hashtags #WorldYWCADay2024 and #YWCALeaders!
Click the buttons below to access the toolkit:
Join us from 12 to 18 November
As we approach the Week of Prayer and World Fellowship in 2023, we invite communities worldwide to come together from November 12 to 18 to reflect on the theme, ‘Seeds to Blossoms: Cultivating Hope and Love in Solidarity.’ This theme celebrates our unity within the global and intergenerational YWCA-YMCA movement and reminds us of the profound connections that bind us.
Picture our movements as a diverse garden where each individual represents a unique seed. Just like different plants needing specific care to blossom, we can learn and grow with our diverse backgrounds and perspectives and contribute to a global garden of peace, justice, and equity.
During this Week of Prayer, join us to embark on a journey where, like a gardener, we care for a plant to prepare the soil, sow the seeds, nurture with care, be guardians of growth, foster resilience through pruning, and harvest the fruits of our labor.
In our diverse and interconnected global YWCA-YMCA movement, we invite you to take part in this reflection, prayer, and action journey to cultivate hope and love, strengthening the bonds that unite us for positive change.
Remember to tag World YWCA on social media channels so we can share your local activities with the larger Y movement.
Access the booklet below:
Remember to tag World YWCA on social media channels so we can share your local activities with the larger Y movement.
For additional information, kindly contact worldoffice@worldywca.org
YWCA’s Week Without Violence is an annual global campaign held during the third week of October every year. For over 25 years, this campaign has been dedicated to raising awareness, promoting change, and enabling positive action to end violence against women, young women, and girls in all their diversity.
Join us from October 16-21, 2023, as we come together under the theme ‘Not On Our Screens, Not On Our Streets: A Movement Towards Violence-Free Communities’ taking a stand against Online Gender-Based Violence (OGBV) and working together for safer communities worldwide.
YWCA is calling upon young leaders worldwide to unite in the fight against violence. Join us from October 16 to 21, 2023, to stand in solidarity with ending gender-based violence in all spaces where it occurs—online and offline. We recognize the deep connection between online and offline hate speech and violence against women, girls, and gender-diverse individuals. Everyone deserves the right to be their true selves, to explore and express themselves safely and free from violence, whether in digital spaces or communities.
Raise your voice against online and street-based gender violence! Together, we can create a world where women, young women, girls, and gender-diverse individuals are safe both online and on the streets. Share your stories, advocate for change, support one another, and report harassment when you see it online or on the street. Let’s unite to eradicate gender-based violence from our screens and communities. We present our Toolkit and invite you to engage in this cause by using some of the following resources:
- 💡 Fact Information and Data
- 🌟 How to engage in the campaign
- 🤝 Safety tips for online and street harassment
- 📄How to report incidents
- 📱 Social media templates
Join us in the fight for a safer, more inclusive world in 2023. Don’t forget to engage on social media using the hashtags #YWCALeaders #WeekWithoutViolence2023 #WWV23
Download our toolkit and contribute to the fight against GBV by sharing content in social media, planning engaging activities and/or advocating with other tools shared in this document!
Download the Templates and social media covers
Edit the Templates in Canva
For more detailed resources and guidance, visit YWCA USA.
This year’s theme graphics were developed by YWCA Canada . For information and resources specific to Canada, visit YWCA Canada and check out their toolkit.
A digital annual report detailing key developments and achievements from the World YWCA in 2020, including information about events, campaigns, and resources.
Blooming Wildflowers: Weaving Stories of Activism
From our earliest years, stories have played a crucial role in our lives. They have the power to forge emotional connections, bridging the gap between local and global issues. Stories not only bind us to our heritage and culture it also links us to our ancestors, to our land, ocean and skies. Stories inform our way of knowing, being, and doing. It connects us to our present and future, as well as the natural world that surrounds us. Stories shape our perspectives, and influence how we navigate the world. With this in mind, the Storytelling Guide by the World YWCA has been meticulously crafted to help individuals harness the power of #storytelling for social activism.
Designed with activists, #leaders, changemakers, women, and #youngwomen in mind, this comprehensive guide provides a feminist perspective on effecting change through storytelling. It is particularly tailored to the leaders of the World Young Women Christian Association (YWCA), spanning diverse regions, cultures, languages, and storytelling traditions. Packed with a comprehensive range of exercises and support, including journaling prompts and brainstorming techniques, the Guide offers an invaluable resource for refining personal and collective perspectives while effecting tangible change. With its seamless adaptability, it empowers individuals to develop and cultivate their storytelling skills in support of their #activism and their activism journey.
The Storytelling Guide is designed to be adaptable and easily accessible to all users.
If you are keen to translate the guide in your local language, kindly contact worldoffice@worldywca.org for guidance.
The World YWCA Advocacy Roadmap lays out the pathways to guide our actions and ensure that World YWCA remains disciplined in focus and depth of impact. We consider advocacy as a set of strategic activities designed to influence decision makers, laws and regulations, structures and practises to address the root causes of injustice and transform power structures for gender equality. The World YWCA uses different advocacy methods and tools depending on the context including policy research, campaigning, public events, lobbying and policy dialogue, media work and production of assets such as podcasts, toolkits, and statements. We acknowledge that effective advocacy is multifaceted, complex and beyond the scope of a single organisation.
Every year on April 24, YWCAs worldwide celebrate World YWCA Day. This year, for #WorldYWCADay2023, we highlight the power of YWCA safe spaces to build community and advance human rights. We invite all #YWCALeaders to join the global celebration under the theme: “Every Safe Space Has a Story.”
As one of the oldest and largest feminist, faith-based organizations. it was in 1855 when YWCA first provided safe housing to young women in London seeking employment. This marked the earliest concept of YWCA Safe Spaces. Today, YWCAs in local communities in over 100 countries from every region continue to provide safe spaces, serving over 25 million women, young women, and girls of all ages. While the idea behind YWCA Safe Spaces first came to life as an actual physical space, the practice has evolved into any space where women, young women, and girls can come together, share, listen, and actively engage with each other in a safe manner.
Mark this special occasion and share your stories around safe spaces. What comes to your mind when you think of “safe spaces”? What incident, experience, or anecdote can you recall regarding your first safe space, your best safe space, a space you felt yourself for the first time, or even a space where you explored the idea of safety beyond yourself?
Because every safe space has a story, we invite you to engage with the YWCA movement this World YWCA Day 2023 by bringing to light YOUR safe space story.
Read the tool to find more information on the theme, ideas on celebrating the day, and engaging in social media with visuals and social media covers in the tool.
Don’t forget to engage on social media using the hashtag #YWCALeaders #WorldYWCADay2023.
Download the toolkit in:
Every year on April 24, YWCAs around the world celebrate World YWCA Day. For 160 years, YWCA leaders have taken action in communities to make human rights a reality.In a recent in-depth study done by World YWCA on leadership, many #YWCALeaders shared that they believe “leadership is influencing, guiding and motivating women and young women to realise their potential and work together to achieve a common goal.”
For World YWCA Day 2022, join us as we will celebrate YWCA day under the theme: ” #YWCALeaders Co-Creating Goal 2035, Not just some place we are going to, but a place we are creating together“. Serving with love remains a common mandate for all the work we do on ground, in communities and at national and international level. In 2015, when the YWCA leaders came together to define “our collective goal” as a single shared statement of our commitment for the future, with YWCA contributing within its own space, context and resources, Goal 2035 was born.
This year, as we celebrate #WorldYWCADay, we invite all #YWCALeaders to share their insights on centering young women and girls, shifting power structures to achieve a world free from violence.
Goal 2035 is not just some place we are all going towards, but a place we are all committed to building and creating together as YWCA leaders. Which is why for World YWCA Day 2022 on April 24, this year, we invite YWCA Leaders to think, deliberate, engage and find spaces to co-create, acting towards Goal 2035. Find more information on the theme, ideas on how to celebrate the day, and how to engage in social media with visuals and social media covers in the tool.
Don’t forget to engage on social media using the hashtag #YWCALeaders #WYD2022.
You can also go to our Trello board to download the social media covers and editable templates.
Download the toolkit in:
