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Information:
 The
Gambia Foundation for Research on Women's Health, Productivity
and the Environment (BAFROW) was established in Banjul
in July 1991 as a registered NGO and became a charitable trust
in 1992. The civil society organisation's main areas of focus
is on women's social empowerment, health,
environmental
issues and economic welfare.
BAFROW aims to help the central government's development programs
via its economic and social empowerment schemes with the aim
of improving the welfare of people living in certain communities.
These programs are executed at the local, regional and countrywide
levels which includes the Upper
River Region, Central
River Region, the Greater Banjul area, Western
River Region and the Kombos.
Funding:
 The
organisation is funded by monies created by its founders and
revenues generated through consultation research and related
services. Its community schemes are financed by donations
and grants made within The Gambia and from international donors.
Vision:
BAFROW's future vision is a wider and more inclusive view
of the individual's capacity, with a large focus on enhanced
knowledge, skills
building and information. Their ultimate goal is to ensure
Gambian people have social, economic and political empowerment,
to allow citizens, especially women,
to make better informed decisions on issues that have an effect
on their lives. And finally, to take part in and benefit from
national and local community development programs and to demand
their rights and improve their quality of life and health.
Detailed Objectives:
• Provide & support healthcare services such as reproductive
& sexual health, child & maternal health & prevention
of HIV/Aids & other STDs.
• Advocate & support activities on women & environmental
management & protection.
• Create action research programs and mobilize campaigns against
detrimental cultural practices such as female
genital mutilation (FGM) in Gambia, promote alternative
rights of passage and encourage positive traditional
practices.
• Spread awareness about political, social, economic and
environmental issues and allow groups to give meaning of such
issues and express means for actions dealing with them.
• Push for women's
economic empowerment through village
savings schemes, micro-financing
and capacity building in enterprise management and planning.
• Reinforce institutional and community capacity,
civic empowerment, community involvement in socio-economic
development at all stages as beneficiaries and partners.
• Produce empirical data and gender analysis about females and issues
related to their capacity based on pilot projects, case studies
and research.
• Advance women's and girls education through advocating for
the keeping of girls at all grades within the schooling system and
basic literacy tuition for women who have been by-passed or
neglected by the
education establishment.
• Encourage a high rate of networking between community groups
in the rural and urban areas.
• Support and strengthen Youth
Advocacy Groups of BAFROW for the prevention of HIV/AIDS
in Gambia.
Structure:
BAFROW is lead by a director who is helped by a deputy and
various program coordinators for the following:
• Action research, M&E, documentation and information dissemination.
• Economic & social empowerment of communities & women.
• Environment and gender.
• Mobile clinics.
• Program sustainability.
• Well Woman and Family Clinics (WWFHC).
• Youth Empowerment and reproductive health rights.
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