From its inception in 2017, the Women Empowerment Project Foundation (WEPF) has supported charitable and women empowerment projects across the Gambia, helping improve the quality of life of various vulnerable groups in the country.
WEPF was founded by Mai Kanyi, a Gambian based in the United Kingdom. It aims to empower women in the Gambia by providing them support and access to education, healthcare and social support and wellbeing.
The foundation currently supports the renovation of the female wing at the Tanka-Tanka, the Gambia’s only psychiatric hospital.
Its support also spread across projects in health care, education and social protection support for children and orphans including SOS Children’s Village and the Mile two Prisons.
Despite a high demand, the state of mental health care in the Gambia left much to be desired while the only psychiatric hospital remains under-resourced. As a result, mentally ill persons face a lot of challenges including family isolation.
The Foundation embarked on several critical initiatives to raise funds to drive for the renovation of the female wing to see that patients are able to rest, feel safe and receive the help they need.
The renovation includes pavement of the area with concrete to support the movement of female patients.
The Women Empowerment Project Foundation believes that more needs to be done to give patients much needed mental health care and ensure they are accorded effective services.
The Foundation continues to pay a great attention to the country’s only referral mental health facility and will continue to take more steps towards building valuable partnerships with local and international organisations and individuals.
We believe it is everyone’s responsibility to do something to support the mentally ill patients in The Gambia. We will continue to support this ongoing renovation at Tanka Tanka by restructuring the facility with many things to make it a friendly and conducive environment.
Our foundation will also look for more funding and partnership support to be able construct a playing ground in the hospital where patients can play different games and also assist them with good diet, clothing and others.
Furthermore, part of our project is to support inmates at Mile II Prisons. We want to support them with food and other materials that can aid them at the prison.
The mission
Our aims and objectives for this project is to bring about advancement, development, and empowerment of women in the Gambia. We also work towards expanding advocacy and awareness creation to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women in society and improve their participation skills training, higher education, and vocational courses.
