Women in the third world, particularly in Africa have endured a lot of discrimination and deprivation because of their gender. Though there has been a proliferation of women ‘success stories lately, Africa still resembles a male-dominated society. Men still dominate the society and are still enjoying certain privileges that are out of reach for most women. We are going to work around providing for both their (women) practical and strategic needs. We will lobby for practical ways to compensate for the historical disadvantages that bar women from operating at the same level as men. By doing so, we hope to eliminate discrimination based on sex when it comes to opportunities, access to resources, services and in life in general.
We would love to see the day every woman steps up to the plate to follow their dreams and be in charge without being confined. This, however, is not to mean that we want to antagonize the society by influencing women to “rise against” men, we simply want them rise to their level best without being restrained by social, political and religious representations that have been holding them captive for a long time. Too often women are exposed to domestic violence which causes a great deal of physical and emotional damage. We are saying domestic violence must STOP and must never be tolerated no matter what the causes might be as nothing justifies violence. The Friendly Society will be doing gender analysis from to time to try and raise concerns or address any gender issues that might be affecting communities.
