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We Are Purposeful

@wearepurposeful_org

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Resourcing girls & young people, we centre their visions, realities, power - and liberation. And in their activism, our world is re-imagined.

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A year ago, South African women shut the country down until the President named femicide a national disaster.

This year women’s bodies are being found again. An emergency was declared but concrete actions to keep women and girls safe didn’t follow.

The words in this carousel come from our colleague, Liesel Bakker, written to us in the days after the last reported killing.

We’re sharing them with her blessing because grief this size does not fit in an inbox and because she says what the official language keeps avoiding: women are being killed not because they have failed to understand danger but because the nation has failed them.

Purposeful shares Liesel’s heartbreak and fury and stands by @womenforchangesa and the other orgs mobilising mass action, survivor support and political pressure. Follow them. Amplify them. Resource them.

For every sister who did not make it home...

Video by Women for Change SA (@womenforchangesa)

Art and Illustration by @happytoborders by @wearepurposeful_org

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4 days ago

BBC’s Dear Daughter podcast, hosted by the brilliant Namulanta Kombo (@namulanta) has inspired a series of letters at Purposeful. This past Friday, in honour of International Day of the Girl Child, Brittle Paper (@brittlepaper) published another one: Programs Coordinator Lindsay Sesay’s (@lindsay.wellington.1) moving essay to her daughter Gianna (Gigi).

This essay contains both a story and a promise.
At its center is a mother’s vow, one every girl child deserves to hear: you will always be believed.

Read the full piece at the link in bio.

#WeArePurposeful
#IDG
#EndGBV by @wearepurposeful_org

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6 days ago

Some stories don’t make headlines, but they change everything.

Across Sierra Leone, girls are gathering to listen, laugh, learn, earn a living, and lift each other up. This letter is for them 💜 And it is for all the other girls, from Gaza to Congo to Sudan to Yemen to Ukraine, whom the world continues to fail.

This #InternationalDayOfTheGirlChild, Purposeful celebrates their Girls’ Circles’ Collectives. We demand the world do better by every girl whose laughter is silenced by grief. And we celebrate every voice growing from strength to strength.

To we GCC gals dem, we know say we don dae tel una boku tin dem. But if you only remember one thing, let it be this:
Your life matters. Your dreams deserve time, space and resources.

#WeArePurposeful
#YouAreOurPurpose
#GCC
#IDG by @wearepurposeful_org

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8 days ago

Every girl deserves a life full of options: to learn, to earn, to dream, to decide her own future. Across Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Kenya and Malawi, our grantee partners are making those options real by building the conditions where girls finish school, live free from violence, and marry only if and when they choose. As International Day of the Girl Child approaches, we want you to know their names. Swipe through to meet the organisations changing girls’ lives on the ground. Follow them and support their work.

#IDG
#WeArePurposeful
#Young Mothers Consortium by @wearepurposeful_org

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10 days ago

Three youth attendees @msnzisaa @menghorng_kao @emmanuella.stacey have now written about their experience at the Power4Girls session — reflecting on what attending such a critical convening meant to them, and what needs to change for Women Deliver 2026 to be not just a moment that moved them, but a movement that finances girls already at the forefront of grassroots organising.

Read their powerful blog post on Purposeful’s medium. Link in bio.

#WomenDeliver2026
#AlreadyLeading
#girlsdeliver2026 by @wearepurposeful_org

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11 days ago

Across Women Deliver pre-conferences, young women attendees had insights and reflections that moved the needle.

Girls have been speaking.

The question is whether the systems, the donors, and the decision-makers are ready to listen — and act.
Swipe through their powerful words

Sketch art created from photographs taken at Women Deliver 2026
No other AI tools were used in this design.

#AlreadyLeading. #WD2026
#womendeliver2026 by @wearepurposeful_org

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13 days ago

With the recent floods leaving hundreds of thousands of people in Thailand facing a humanitarian emergency, we’ve made the difficult decision to withdraw from SVRI Forum 2026 and redirect our resources to girl and young feminist responders on the ground.

Swipe through for our full statement. Or read it via the link in bio.

No AI tools were used for this design.

#SVRI2026
#WeArePurposeful by @wearepurposeful_org

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17 days ago

At this year’s Sexual Violence and Research Initiative Forum in Bangkok Thailand, Purposeful will be asking some questions:
How is gender-based violence escalating in contexts where girls and women’s rights are being rolled back ?
How are girls and young women resisting?
What are partners and funders missing?

Join the conversation at our Side Event on Tuesday 6th October. Hear from those holding the line.
Time: 13:00- 14:30pm
Venue: Ballroom B
Register your attendance: https://bit.ly/uebifsvri

#AlreadyLeading #SVRI2026#UntilEveryBodyIsFree

No AI tools were used for this design. by @wearepurposeful_org

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19 days ago

The most insidious thing about gender-based violence now is how agile and flexible it is. From street harassment to cyber-bullying, it takes the shape of its container.

What does that mean for funders and activists? If organising happens on the internet, then protection must live there too.

Speaking at our “Reclaiming the Digital World” session at Women Deliver 2026, Purposeful Director Nadia Assad breaks down why securing online spaces is about more than preventing harm, it’s defending the right of girls and young women to be heard.

We’re continuing the TFGBV conversation at the SVRI 2026 Forum in Bangkok this October. Come find us there.

#WD2026 #SVRI2026
#AlreadyLeading by @wearepurposeful_org

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24 days ago

Women and girls battling violence aren’t waiting to be rescued. They are organising in war zones, testifying in court rooms and resourcing each other when the world looks away.

At this year’s Sexual Violence Research Initiative Forum @thesvri in Bangkok Thailand, we’ll be sharing research on FGM, climate change, and rape as a tool of war; centering young activists on the frontlines of feminist resistance, and demonstrating what is possible when women and girls have the resources to fight back.

Come find us from 6th to 8th October at the Centara Grand Hotel and Bangkok Convention Centre.

Don’t forget to RSVP for our side event here: https://bit.ly/uebifsvri

We’d love to connect with researchers, funders and movement partners thinking about how the movement can best serve the moment.

P.S. No AI was used in the design of these posts

#AlreadyLeading
#SVRI2026
#UntilEveryBodyIsFree by @wearepurposeful_org

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a month ago

Inside View - Famia Nkansa, Dr. Bintu Mansaray & Dr. Frances Ramatu Wurie

Female genital mutilation is changing shape.

Across parts of West Africa, some families are turning to doctors, nurses and clinics instead of traditional practitioners — giving FGM the appearance of a medically sanctioned procedure.

Globally, UNFPA estimates that 230 million women and girls alive today have undergone FGM. UNICEF estimates around 52 million — roughly one in four — were cut by health personnel.

But moving FGM into a clinic does not remove its physical, sexual or psychological consequences. The World Health Organization has also warned that medicalisation can normalise the practice by lending it the credibility of the health system.

Research suggests some families choose health professionals precisely because they believe they are more hygienic, skilled and better equipped to manage complications.

That creates a difficult challenge for anti-FGM messaging.

The authors argue that campaigns focused heavily on dirty blades, infection and unsafe conditions may leave room for families to conclude that clinical cutting is a safer alternative.

⚕️ WHO’s 2025 guidance calls for professional codes explicitly prohibiting health workers from performing FGM, prevention training and better communication with families requesting the procedure.

The emerging policy question is not simply how to prevent unsafe FGM, but how to make clear that the harm lies in the cutting itself — regardless of whether it takes place in a village or a hospital.

📰 ➡️ https://healthpolicy-watch.news/when-harm-hides-in-hospital-messaging-and-the-medicalisation-of-female-genital-mutilation/

Inside View - Famia Nkansa, Dr. Bintu Mansaray & Dr. Frances Ramatu Wurie
@aimsl2025 @wearepurposeful_org @unfpa @unicef @who @sahiyovoices
#FemaleGenitalMutilation #EndFGM #GenderBasedViolence #SexualAndReproductiveHealth #GlobalHealth #SHRH

Link is in the Bio by @wearepurposeful_org

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a month ago

For decades, anti-FGM campaigns warned about dirty blades and unsterile settings. Some parents listened. And moved the cutting into clinics instead.

Today, 52 million women and girls alive have been cut by health workers, even though there is no medically-approved version of FGM.
How do we communicate that no venue sanitises the brutality of this practice? That the problem is not the bush or the blade. It is the violence.

Our new op-ed in @healthpolicywatch , written with Dr Bintu Mansaray and Dr Frances Wurie, unpacks how the movement’s own messaging got misheard. And how heath workers could become the messengers who finally correct it.

Read the full article: link in our bio (When Harm Hides in Hospital)

#EndFGM
#AcrossBordersAdvancingJustice
#FGMSurvivorLeadership by @wearepurposeful_org

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a month ago