Understanding Vulnerabilities
The field of vulnerability assessment or vulnerability mapping is traditionally housed within the disaster relief and management fields, which is where the Center for Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality drew its inspiration from. We recognized the value of understanding the inherent stress points in a given context and theorized that it would be useful to leverage that understanding into optimized intervention design. By adapting elements of vulnerability assessment to the field of women’s empowerment, it is possible to understand the vast number of variables and contexts at play in a woman’s life. From the original assessment we begin the iterative process of designing, implementing, and refining interventions with the fewest possible unintended negative consequences to women, their families, their communities, and the environment.