About Our Publications and Manuals

Use the filters on our BROWSE THE LEARNING CENTER page to explore our Publications and Manuals.

WLP has developed over a dozen training manuals, many of which are available in multiple languages. These manuals provide curriculum, facilitation guidelines, and background materials on the topics they cover, which include participatory leadership, political participation, women’s rights, ending violence against women, and strengthening civil society organizations, among others. WLP creates manuals at the request of our partners and women’s rights advocates in the field who wish to present subject matter to grassroots women in a non-hierarchical, dialogue-based, participatory environment. Most of our manuals emphasize shared learning where workshop participants explore the content through problem-solving, role-playing, and discussions. 

In WLP’s Learning Center you can access and download all of our manuals. In addition, to help facilitators customize their lessons, we have made available under Resources for Trainers selected excerpts from our manuals, such as workshop sessions, introductory essays, supplemental materials, and alternative training sessions on various topics. These resources are excerpted from the most commonly used WLP manuals. Educators can adapt the excerpts for their own cultural and teaching contexts, and mix and match them with excerpts from other manuals. 

Also available in the Learning Center are books we translate and publish on topical matters relating to women’s rights and advocacy. Our Translation Series focuses on books that have already been published and have been well-received, which we translate and disseminate to new audiences. In addition, the Learning Center provides access to anthologies and other books published by university presses.

Scroll down to learn more about selected WLP publications and manuals.

Leading to Choices Participatory Leadership manual

Participatory Leadership: Leading to Choices: A Leadership Training Handbook for Women  

WLP's foundational training manual provides curriculum for teaching inclusive, participatory, and horizontal leadership to grassroots women. The manual has been used in interactive leadership workshops with tens of thousands of participants in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. This manual is available in multiple languages, including Maghreby-Arabic, Shamy-Arabic, Assamese, Bahasa Indonesia, English, French, Hausa, Kyrgyz, Malay, Meiteilon, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Shona, Spanish, Swahili, Telugu, Turkish, Urdu, and Uzbek. Read more about Leading to Choices.

Yes I Can Youth Leadership manual

Youth Leadership: Yes I Can: Leadership for Teens 

Yes I Can is a leadership manual designed specifically for teens that was developed in cooperation with the Bahrain Women’s Association. The manual focuses on building the transformative leadership capacities of girls and boys through creative and collaborative workshop sessions. This manual is available in multiple languages, including Arabic, English, French, Turkish, and Urdu.

Leading to Action Political Participation manual

Political Participation: Leading to Action: A Political Participation Handbook for Women

Leading to Action provides curriculum for workshops on political participation for grassroots women, which is easily adaptable to different learning contexts. The manual contains lessons in practical skills for political activists, strategies for addressing social and ethical concerns facing women in politics, and case studies of real world political campaigns. This manual is available in multiple languages, including Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, English, French, Kyrgyz, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Telugu, Turkish, and Urdu.

Beyond Equality Human Rights Advocacy manual

Human Rights Advocacy: Beyond Equality: A Manual for Human Rights Defenders

Beyond Equality provides curriculum for workshops on human rights for grassroots women, students, and civil society professionals. The sessions explore human rights with a special emphasis on women’s rights, and the human rights instruments that can be used to advocate for the advancement of everyone. The lessons in the manual challenge participants to aspire beyond equal power between men and women, to a world where there are rights, freedom, and security for all. This manual is available in English, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, and Urdu.

Victories over Violence Ending VAW practitioners manual

Ending Violence against Women and Girls: Victories over Violence: Ensuring Safety for Women and Girls

Victories over Violence is a manual for practitioners that explores the linkages between violence in the home and in the community. Through the lessons in the manual, workshop participants learn strategies for challenging social norms, laws, and policies that permit violence against women at the local, national, and international levels. This manual is available in multiple languages, including English, French, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, and Urdu.

Leading to Compassion

Negotiating Peace and Justice: Leading to Compassion

As much as human rights provide direction for progressive social change, they do not show us how to influence deep-seated beliefs. Something much more than fixing laws is needed to alleviate suffering caused by entrenched conflict and discrimination. Sometimes what is needed is compassion. Other times what is needed is justice. The manual's four lessons explore the overlaps and incompatibilities between the pursuit of peace versus justice, and the role of empathy in finding a way forward in a conflict. The manual also addresses negotiation tactics and considers the meaning and connotations associated with human rights language that can have a bearing on the progress of negotiations and peace planning. This manual is available in English.

Guide to Equality in the Family Maghreb

Family Law: Guide to Equality in the Family in the Maghreb 

This advocacy tool provides information on family law in the Maghreb, and proposes data-driven human rights, religious, sociological, and legal arguments for reform. Promoting equality within the family is an effective strategy for accomplishing women’s freedom and rights while building equitable relations between the sexes. The Collectif 95 Maghreb-Egalité developed the Guide for men and women in the Middle East-North Africa region to respond to those who justify discrimination against women based on Islam. This book is available in English and Persian.

One Million Signatures Campaign Iran

Women’s Rights Advocacy: Iranian Women's One Million Signatures Campaign for Equality

This book by founding member of the campaign Noushin Admadi Khorasani, details the history, strategies, and goals of the diverse group of Iranian activists who carried out the widely-lauded One Million Signatures Campaign for Equality. The campaign, which was launched in 2006, is a valuable model for grassroots movements in the 21st century, particularly where activists are mobilizing under the strictures of highly repressive regimes. This book is available in multiple languages, including Arabic, English, Persian, and Russian.

Violence without Borders

Violence Against Women: Violence without Borders: Paradigm, policy and praxis concerning violence against women

Violence without Borders helps us understand the process by which patriarchy, discriminatory legal systems, institutions, and hegemonic values make violence against women endemic, beginning at the level of the family and local community. Ten country case studies shed light on the underlying reasons for women’s disempowerment, and the actions women take to change patriarchal hierarchies in their societies and the world at large. This book is available in English and Turkish.

Leading to Choices Facilitators Curriculum

Participatory Leadership for Trainers: Leading to Choices: A Multimedia Toolkit for Leadership Learning

Building on the success of the Leading to Choices manual, we developed a companion toolkit for trainers. The toolkit includes three videos and booklet guides on effective communication, interactive facilitation, and advocacy for change. It has been used to train thousands of NGO leaders and activists. This manual is available in multiple languages, including Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, English, French, Persian, Russian, Turkish, and Urdu.

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