WOMEN BUDDY PROGRAMME

No one should have to start over alone. So we make the introduction.

A woman who needs a friend, matched with another woman who has been there. Not a caseworker, not a course. A friend, for as long as she needs one.

What it feels like

She hadn't talked to anyone about it in weeks.

After the move, the friends who said they'd stay in touch stopped calling. The new city felt like a waiting room. She signed up because she had nothing to lose.

Her buddy wasn't a therapist. Wasn't a social worker. Just someone who showed up on Tuesday evenings with a cup of tea and no agenda.

They talked about everything and nothing. The weather. A recipe that went wrong. A job interview that went worse. Sometimes they just sat together on a video call, each doing their own thing, not alone.

A laptop on a sofa, a video call waiting to begin in a warm living room

Six months later she said it herself: this city finally felt like a place she lived, not a place she was stuck.

All stories are composites. They represent real experiences but do not identify specific individuals.

The research

This is not a small thing. Studies of displaced women find that isolation makes them 19.5 times more likely to struggle with depression. It is why the programme starts with a person, not a service.

Not charity.
Not mentoring.
Not professional development.

Friendship.

A buddy is a woman who has been new somewhere too. She is not there to fix your papers or find you a job. She listens, she meets you for coffee or on a video call, and a strange place slowly starts to feel less strange.

For Ukrainian and Latin American women.

It is one programme and one kind of friendship, open to Ukrainian women and to women across Latin America, wherever they are. Sign up where you feel at home.

For Ukrainian women

Ти не сама.

You are not alone.

You left because of the war. You do not have to settle in alone.

Matched with a woman who understands what it takes to rebuild a life somewhere new, and who will walk part of the way with you.

Start here

For Latin American women

No estás sola.

You are not alone.

A compañera who gets it, wherever you are.

For every Latin American woman who needs one, at home or far from it, matched with a woman who understands.

Start here

HOW IT WORKS

She is not assigned a stranger. She chooses.

Match

Meet

Stay

A few women, her choice

She tells us a little about herself. We suggest a few women who fit, by city, language, and the things she cares about. She picks who feels right.

Coffee, or a video call

They meet on video from anywhere, or in person over coffee where that is possible. How often, and for how long, is theirs to decide.

At her pace

There is no curriculum and no clock. The friendship grows the way friendships do, one conversation at a time.

A friendship with a shape.

Behind the coffee and the calls there is a quiet structure, so no one falls through the cracks.

First 7 days First 30 days First 90 days

Welcome

A first hello in the first week. Someone knows she has arrived, and someone is glad she did.

Support

A steadier rhythm. Everyday routines, finding her way around, the small things that make a week feel normal.

Pathway

When she is ready, the friendship opens doors: a language course, a new skill, work, whatever is next for her.

And if a match does not feel right, she says so, and we help her find a better one. No explanations owed.

WHO RUNS IT

It costs nothing. It never will.

The Women Buddy Programme is part of The Educational Equality Institute. Every buddy is a woman, and every one is reviewed before she is ever matched. When a first meeting happens in person, it happens somewhere public.

It is free, for every woman, on both sides of the friendship. We built it that way because no one should have to buy their way out of being alone.

Every buddy reviewed

First meetings in public

Free, always