Founded in 2004, HER Fund mobilizes resources for women’s empowerment, the promotion of social changes and gender equality. We support the most vulnerable women and girls in Hong Kong by providing capacity-building, leadership training and small grants to grassroots organizations led by and serving the most disadvantaged. We also increase the visibility of marginalized women and girls—and the issues they face.
HER Fund sees herself as part of the social movements. We are committed to empowering the capacity of marginalized women to become self-sufficient, enabling them to create, lead, and sustain better lives. Our 4 main focus in grant-making are : "Freedom from Discrimination", "Freedom from Violence", "Freedom from Poverty", and "Advancement of Women's Civil Participation".
Our priority is given to marginalized women who have been collectively disadvantaged because of their social positions. These marginalized women are systematically declined of their rights, opportunities and resources that are normally available to members of society and are the key to social integration. They are the least resourceful, lack voices, and often their needs and human rights are being denied.
Our small grants support is a seed grant and a unique source that allow new initiatives for marginalized women to realize and to grow. HER grants are flexible, and makes room for grantee partners to respond to their changing community needs without feeling the too often burdensome and unrealistic pressure to ‘stick-to-the-script’. Listening to community needs, adapting, and re-strategizing is part of HER’s culture.
HER Fund is not just a funder, but also a companion to all our grantee partners. Many of our grantee partners are new or evolving groups/organizations who lack resources. In addition to giving them financial grants, HER Fund also provides comprehensive support, for we see this as a way to empower marginalized women and their work to achieve sustainability and impactful development.
The support includes but is not limited to:
- giving advice on proposals
- introducing professional volunteer
- connecting foundations with grantee partner
- getting media exposure
- creating learning opportunities
Freedom from Violence:
Violence against women is both a brutal consequence of gender
inequalities and a key obstacle to equality. Violence against women can
be defined as violence directed against a person because the person is
woman or as violence that affects women disproportionately. It includes
violence in close relationships, sexual violence (including rape, sexual
assault and harassment), economic abuse and diverse forms of harmful
practices that negatively affect women’s physical and psychological
well-being.
Freedom from Discrimination:
Discrimination is to make a distinction in favor of or against a
person on the basis of the group, class, or category to which the person
belongs rather than according to actual merit; It is action that denies
social participation or human rights to categories of people based on
prejudice. It is a form of control by those who are in power to those
being disempowered in order to uphold the status quo.
Discrimination against women is incompatible with human dignity and
constitutes an obstacle to the full realization of the potentialities of
women; In addition, since discrimination can take many forms, many
women are marginalized not only on the ground of their gender but also
their age, citizen status, ethnic background identities, work and sexual
orientations, etc. Marginalized women are the most vulnerable who are
at greatest risk of suffer economic hardship, social exclusion and
violence.
Freedom from Poverty:
Poverty is defined in either relative or absolute terms. Absolute
poverty measures poverty in relation to the amount of money necessary to
meet basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. Relative poverty
defines poverty in relation to the economic status of other members of
the society: people are poor if they fall below prevailing standards of
living in a given societal context.
Poverty is also social, political and cultural. It is considered to
undermine human rights - economic (the right to work and have an
adequate income), social (access to health care and education),
political (freedom of thought, expression and association) and cultural
(the right to maintain one's cultural identity and be involved in a
community's cultural life). Marginalized women under gender and multiple
forms of discrimination, are mostly in face of poverty.
Promote Women’s Civil Participation:
Women are not seen as passive beneficiary or recipient of social
resources or root causes of social problems. Instead they are seen as
stakeholders who have an important role to play in contributing to the
long term, sustainable development and positive society change. By
participating in policy making, women and girls, especially the
marginalized, help ensure that their needs and interests are taken into
account in decision-making process that affects their lives.
Civil Participation has direct or indirect impacts on our livelihood
and wellbeing, and women, especially marginalized women can be more
visible and to promote positive social change with active social
participation. And the forms of civil participation varied from doing
research and discussing social issues, community education, policy
advocacy, organizing social action to pushing media monitoring.
