Research Institute for Gender and Women, Inc.

Vision
We envision a multicultural Philippine society where women and men, unencumbered by gender, actualize their fullest potentials and work together as equal partners for development, promoting health, eliminating poverty, violence and infectious diseases, and nurturing a sustainable environment for our children and the next generation to thrive peacefully.

Mission and Goals
Believing that gender is the primary organizing principle in social life,  our mission is to foster social development from below, that is founded on gender equality and women’s emancipation, through research and education. Through these initiatives, we participate in current efforts to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

As such, we strive to
1)      engage in local, national, and regional (Asian) research projects that examine gender and/or women in various aspects of social life, as well as research projects aimed at social development, such as health, environment, governance and migration, with gender as a cross-cutting theme;
2)      bring in experts and offer summer post-graduate seminars in the social sciences to the socially disadvantaged faculty members in Mindanao, thus improving the quality of education of their students;
3)    organize workshops and build capacities for grassroots men and women,  and forge partnership between the academics and the grassroots; and
4)      locate our physical office in the margin, outside Metro Manila and the university setting, in a Mindanao farming community at the boundary of the forest, where we obtain a different perspective of reality as well as make a difference in the lives of indigenous peoples rarely reached by development initiatives.