Our Work

Empowered Aid is based at the Global Women’s Institute at George Washington University and has partnered with local and international aid organizations such as World Vision, the Union of Relief and Development Associations (URDA), CARE, and the International Rescue Committee, as well as an increasing number of community-based, refugee-led organizations. We work in a growing number of countries that host some of the largest refugee populations in the world, including Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Bangladesh. We strategically partner with organizations working in other countries, or in internal displacement contexts, to support them in adapting and using Empowered Aid’s tools wherever humanitarian aid responses take place. 

Since 2018, Empowered Aid has:

• Conducted rigorous, participatory research on how the distribution of humanitarian aid (such as food, non-food items, shelter, water, fuel, cash & vouchers) may increase risks of SEA within affected populations and how to reduce those risks.

• Shared power with refugee women and girls, their communities, and emerging women researchers from some of the largest refugee-hosting countries in the world to ensure prevention of SEA is led by those most affected by it.

• Partnered with local and international humanitarian aid actors to develop, document and disseminate tools and resources for safer aid distributions.