Women and Youth Initiatives (WYI) is a community-based organisation that was founded in 2019 by fifteen women from the city of Mwanza. WYI aims to increase awareness and provide training on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), teach young mothers and women skills in leadership and confidence, vocational training and entrepreneur skills, establish a community bank in the village and organise activities that generate cash for the group.

Women and Youth Initiatives (WYI) aims to promote gender equality in access to productive resources through collective social actions. To achieve the goal above, WYI intends to reach out to three wards and engage 30 young mothers and women directly and over 200 young mothers and women indirectly through various approaches:

1. Begin by building the confidence, leadership, facilitation and operational capacity of 15 members of the organisation who are women and young girls, so that the organisation can serve more extensive groups of women and young girls in the community.
2. Second, the organisation intends to identify and recruit 30 women and young mothers to participate in an economic empowerment training program as part of an employment opportunity to break down the barrier to accessing productive resources among them. The program will last one month for each cohort, but it will continue even after the fund is depleted. They will be given seed capital as a revolving fund so that other incoming groups can access it without relying on donors in the coming months or years.
3. In addition, the organisation plans to launch an awareness campaign to advocate for women’s right to access and control productive resources. This campaign will be held twice a year and involve all employment sectors, both private and public.
4. Furthermore, the organisation intends to hold SRHR sessions for young girls and women during the economic empowerment program, which will be carried out in collaboration with Mwanza district health professionals.
5. Lastly, WYI intends to organise and facilitate leadership and confidence-building activities for all 30 young mothers and women recruited for the program. The main goal is to empower them to advocate for themselves and become equality ambassadors.