EMPODERE-SE Defesa Pessoal

Empodere-se is a Brazilian initiative focused on women’s self-defense, safety, and empowerment. Founded in 2017, it has delivered more than 500 workshops and reached over 12,000 women across the country. Its approach combines five self-defense principles—thinking, using the voice, leaving, fighting, and telling—with seven dimensions of women’s power, including physical, psychological, legal, financial, community, political, and historical perspectives.

The organization offers corporate workshops for women, available in person or digitally and adaptable to groups of 10 to 500 participants. Sessions run from one to eight hours and combine practical self-defense techniques with confidence-building activities, discussion, and guidance on responding to harassment and violence. Topics include safety at work, on the street, in transport, and at home, as well as relevant legal protections. Workshops are led by certified women instructors, with training materials and equipment provided.

Empodere-se also facilitates corporate conversations on “new masculinities,” creating spaces to discuss responsibility, relationships, and violence prevention. Its programs support workplace wellbeing and align with diversity, inclusion, and gender-equality goals.