Purposeful

12/08/2026

Congolese girls and women lead, care, and protect. ✊🏾

Across eastern DRC, women and girls are at the forefront of the crisis, and also at the forefront of response efforts on the ground.

They are not only responding to urgent needs. They are creating hope where many have been made to feel there is no way out.

This is care as resistance.
This is protection rooted in community.
This is feminist crisis response.

Congolese girls, women, and feminist organizers are leading.
They need flexible funding, protection, and sustained solidarity to keep going. We know this well, as Purposeful emerged at the height of the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone and has been working alongside young feminists in the DRC for years. Through the Global Resilience Fund, Purposeful is moving flexible resources to young Congolese feminists so they can respond as realities shift, sustain their work, and continue supporting communities.

They should not have to carry this work alone.

We invite funders, partners, and allies who believe in locally led, feminist crisis response to join us in resourcing Congolese leadership, now and for the long term.

Stand with Congolese girls & women leading essential crisis response efforts ✊🏾

10/08/2026

Listen to Congolese feminists on the frontlines. 📢

In eastern DRC, feminist organizers are naming the crisis clearly: this is not only an armed conflict. It is a layered crisis shaped by displacement, gender-based violence, food insecurity, the collapse of health services, and now, the growing threat of Ebola.

They are also naming what is needed.
🕊️ Address the root causes of violence and instability.
📢 Listen to local feminist organizations already responding on the ground.
💸 Move flexible and direct funding to local women- and girls-led groups.
🛡️ Protect activists, survivors, and displaced communities.
🤲🏾 Resource care, dignity, psychosocial support, and long-term solutions.

Our roots in Sierra Leone amid the Ebola and conflict taught us that crisis responses fail girls when their knowledge, leadership, and realities are treated as secondary. This is why, through the Global Resilience Fund, Purposeful prioritizes the wisdom and lived understanding of frontline young feminist organizers and resources the crisis response solutions they are already building.

As our partners remind us: behind every number are human beings. Behind every statistic are communities trying to survive, resist, and rebuild.
Listening means trusting Congolese feminists’ analysis, resourcing their work, and ensuring their voices shape every part of the response.

Listen. Amplify. Fund their leadership.

05/08/2026

Grassroots partners like the Young and Alive Initiative, Young & Alive Initiative are proof that when young people lead, communities transform.

Rooted in rural Tanzania, this organisation walks alongside
young mothers equipping them to create lasting change from within.

Read more about them and our other
partners in the Young Mothers publication: Young, Strong and Powerful (link in bio).

23/07/2026

Three times a year we power down for radical rest. The time is upon us.

So hold that thought till 3rd August.

We’ll link up then.

22/07/2026

One year ago, the ECOWAS Court of Justice ruled that the government of Sierra Leone had failed in its duty to protect women and girls from FGM, and ordered it to take steps to prevent the practice. It was a judgment generations in the making, won by survivors and the movements that stood with them. One year later, not a single law has been passed. Not a single girl is more protected than she was the day before the ruling.

Eleanor Thompson, leading legal counsel on the case, reflects on what it means to win in court and wait on a state. On the distance between judgment and justice. And on why the movement is not going anywhere.

Read the full piece here: https://medium.com/-are-purposeful/a-year-after-the-ecowas-court-fgm-decision-sierra-leone-must-act-20cebbc5fa8e

Forum Against Harmful Practices-FAHP Girl Child Network Sierra LeoneLegal Access through Women Yearning for Equality Rights & Social justiceGirls Advocacy Development NetworkA Girl At A Time - SL

21/07/2026

What does justice mean after a landmark court ruling?

During our regional webinar marking one year since the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice judgment, survivor leaders, advocates and legal experts reminded us that justice is more than a legal decision.

It is restitution.
It is recognition.
And it must be implemented.

Swipe through to hear their words and click the link in bio to get the full details of the 2025 ECOWAS Court judgement.

16/07/2026

Meet the Resource Centre for Women and Girls, Resource Center for Women and Girls.

This organisation for young women by young women, builds girls’ power, potential, and leadership skills in rural Kenya, helping young mothers change their circumstances and communities.

Read more about them and our other partners here( link in our bio)

13/07/2026

Imarisha Dada means “Empower a Sister.” In Kibera, Kenya, this girl-led, community-based organisation creates spaces where young mothers connect, rebuild confidence, strengthen their livelihoods, and lead change.

We’re proud to accompany organisations like Imarisha Dada through the Young Mothers Consortium, because young mothers lead the change.

Read more: bit.ly/powerofym

09/07/2026

On 8th July 2025, anti-FGM advocates across the region, led by a survivor who took her own country to court, won a landmark ruling at the ECOWAS Court of Justice. The Court ruled:
FGM meets the threshold for torture.
Sierra Leone failed in its duty to protect women and girls by allowing the practice to continue.
Sierra Leone must criminalise FGM and protect women and girls from harm.

One year later, the ruling lives on paper while girls still suffer under the blade.

This is the journey to the judgement and the fight
to make it real.

09/07/2026