“Women’s International Foundation (WIF) is a social enterprise establishment set out to promote the advancement and wellbeing of women through empowerment. WIF takes a strategic approach to empowerment which focuses on three pillars of economic, social and personal empowerment of women”.

Thereby all programmes, concepts, techniques and tools used focuses on the three pillars of empowerment. This is a holistic approach to development of women which WIF will further improve through empirical research to consider as a model that can be used and practiced across the world as the tool for women’s empowerment. Around the 3 pillars are the supporting pillars of women leadership development and the fight against violence & harassment against women. Knowledge, skills, attitude building, opportunity creation and networking sits at the heart of the three pillars as operational tools and methodologies. Also assisted are the economic and social research and collaboration to provide a holistic, integrated approach to the development of women which WIF visions to champion.

• Develop a strategic approach to empowerment of women through empirical research into economic, social and personal aspects of advancement and development
• Entrepreneurial development through a guided knowledge, skills and attitude development programmes and processes
• Build a formidable network of women both local and international to assemble a support base and to act as a global pressure group
• Development of leadership skills among women
• Creation of spaces for women in all aspects of life to provide opportunity for advancement and betterment
• Development of social and personal aspects of women through support programmes for holistic empowerment that sustains and advances.

Personal empowerment is achieved through a triangular approach of skill enhancement, knowledge development and mental agility. Under the skill enhancement areas of leadership ability, decision making, change management, multi-tasking, language and communication are considered to be at the heart of development.

Knowledge is delivered through aspects of management, business acumen, market intelligence and being informed and life mastery such as anti-natal, pre-natal, marital, parenting and personal financing. Mental agility is achieved through the programmes aimed at self-awareness, positive attitudes, encouraging the heart, mental stability and learning to be and live happy. The triangular approach will be achieved through specially crafted and designed programmes delivered across Sri Lanka and beyond.

Entrepreneurship development among women sits at the heart of Economic empowerment which is the second pillar in the three pillar strategy. This is delivered in two forms. The first form is directed at women who already run businesses, may it be micro, small or medium. Under this programme these entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs are taken through a systematic process of entrepreneurship develop. This programme is based on a specially designed curricular and an entrepreneurship eco system support.

Delivered in batches and each batch is limited to 20. Each batch is natured and mentored in developing and sustaining the women entrepreneurial value creation. These are delivered as a scholarship programme to encourage a wider participation. This programme is also supported through training & development, monitoring systems, market opportunity creation and technological interventions. Some of the KPIs to evaluate the programme will include, the number of entrepreneurial success stories, number of training hours delivered in total and number of women trained.

In parallel to the Entrepreneurship development programme sub programmes of, “training of trainers”, “training of local communities”, “partnership development” will be delivered to ensure the sustainability of the programme.

The second form of economic empowerment is the development of Intrapreneurs where employment creation and development is taken at the heart of the strategy.

The third pillar of the Empowerment strategy is the Social Empowerment. This is a drive to develop connectedness for support and influence. Thus women related conferences, PR campaigns, event participations, membership drives and social media dialogs and activism is considered as methods and approaches. Networking opportunities are created with the financial systems, religious establishments, media, corporates fraternity, international community, local communities, judiciary, the forces and the police.

The membership drive for WIF is training based and each member should complete a minimum of 100 hrs of essential training to be eligible to be a member with 100 hrs of voluntary work for women’s empowerment.

“Women hold the very essence of existence, development and sustainability of our world. Empowering women in the right way, in a holistic way can contribute to the very essence of our world. A woman has a ripple effect. Therefore every cent spent in empowering, strengthening and educating her is an investment with high return which has strategic impact on our society.

However the word empowerment is a failed word and has resulted in no tangible results. We believe that is because the empowerment has not taken place in a holistic manner and in an impactful way. Thus addressing this gap we have set out WIF to provide a strategic support to the empowerment of women. We will also use WIF as a platform to form partnerships and to organize a collated effort in achieving true results of empowerment. Our philosophy is based on a three pillar strategy of economic, social and personal empowerment which will all relate at a holistic way to the leadership development of women. Mainly focused at Self Leadership.

This is a journey and a journey we go together and we believe in achieving one sustainable step at a time. Our journey will be gradual yet impactful.