| |
Press Contact:
Nasserie Carew
Director of Public Relations
202-667-8227 X 561
NGO Contacts:
Thu Cao
Coordinator, Commission on the Advancement of Women
202-667-8227 X 539 |
| |
|
| |
 |
International Women’s Day -- March 8, 2008 -- is an important time to reflect on the challenges women face, particularly in the developing world, where:
- 70 percent of the nearly 3 billion people living on less than $2 a day;
- The majority of the 72 million children who are not in school; and
- Dying at a rate of 500,000 a year from preventable complications of pregnancy.
InterAction members are active in every developing country, many working to improve the lives and well-being of women and girls. InterAction is a founding partner of the new Women, Faith, and Development Alliance (WFDA), an unprecedented coming together of the women, faith, and international development communities to highlight the importance of investing in women and girls as a means of creating global gender equity and ending poverty.
In honor of International Womens Day 2008, we wish to highlight their truly outstanding work on gender equity, women's literacy, empowerment and similar programs.
InterAction Members Celebrating International Women's Day through Action:
|
Academy for Educational Development, 202-884-8631,
Recognizing the critical role education plays in improving the lives of women in developing countries, AED is proud to present the new video “Path to Promise: Girls Making the Grade.” This moving short film details the incredible stories of Hoctavia and Ruth, two young women who are beating the odds to go to seconary school. Through the Kellogg Southern Africa Leadership fellowship program, which is coordinated by AED, African women are preparing for leadership roles in their home countries |
| |
Counterpart International, 703-236-3286
Gender equity has been a cross-cutting theme of the Initiative to Promote Afghan Civil Society (I-PACS) program since its inception in January 2005. Implemented by Counterpart International with funding from USAID, I-PACS has utilized a Gender and Development (GAD) approach to ensure an equal distribution of opportunities and resources to both men and women served by the program. “You can’t help Afghan women without helping the whole community,” says Tilly Reed, Counterpart’s Chief of Party in Afghanistan. Through I-PACS, Counterpart is strengthening women’s organizations, training women in professional skills, and awarding millions of dollars in grants for projects benefitting thousands of women, men and children all over the country.
|
|
Africare, 202-328-5369
Africare works with women in the areas of health, food security, nutrition, water, microfinance, and education. The Women's Initiative for Sex Education and Economic Empowerment (WISE), for example, aims to improve women's reproductive health through education and access to health care, as well as to economically empower women through vocational/business management training and the provision of start-up equipment. Begun in 2004 in Nigeria, this program is targeted directly at vulnerable groups such as child brides, out-of-school adolescents, street children and sex workers. Other Africare programs aim at maternal and child health, such as the "Improved Community Health Project" in Liberia, helping thousands of women and children.
|
|
American Jewish World Service,
212-792-2845
American Jewish World Service (AJWS) is an international development organization motivated by Judaism’s imperative to pursue justice. AJWS is dedicated to alleviating poverty, hunger and disease among the people of the developing world regardless of race, religion or nationality.
Through grants to grassroots organizations, volunteer service, advocacy and education, AJWS fosters civil society, sustainable development and human rights for all people, while promoting the values and responsibilities of global citizenship within the Jewish community.
AJWS believes that Women are critical drivers of community development; community life cannot truly flourish when women are not fully empowered to resist gender-based violence and oppression.
|
|
American Red Cross,
202-303-5013
The American Red Cross is helping women overcome challenges in conflict-affected Colombia. Women and children represent the majority of forcibly displaced persons and often experience gender-based violence (GBV). The American Red Cross, with the Colombian Red Cross and the International Organization for Migration, is assisting 16,000 displaced women and children in Colombia and neighboring countries to improve human rights by preventing and responding to GBV. Through activities in local communities, the American Red Cross and its partners are advocating for improved health programs, to create “safe zones” to protect survivors and those at risk of GBV, to provide counseling and psychosocial activities and raise community awareness. |
|
CARE USA,
151 Ellis Street NE, Atlanta, GA 30303,, 404-979-9450
CARE is a leading humanitarian organization dedicated to fighting poverty and social injustice. We place special emphasis on investing in women and girls because our experience shows that their empowerment benefits whole communities. Our core programming in agriculture, education, economic development, emergency response, health, HIV & AIDS, and water and sanitation helps women and their communities meet basic needs in ways that are sustainable and empowering. Underpinning all our work is a commitment to using evidence-based policy advocacy to address underlying causes of poverty, such as poor governance, gender inequity, and economic and social exclusion. |
|
Center for Health and Gender Equity, 301-270-1182
The Center for Health and Gender Equity joined with members of the Women Won't Wait campaign to mark the one year anniversary of the campaign’s launch and express concern that that "women’s rights still occupy the margins of HIV&AIDS strategies and funding." In a press statement the campaign issued in advance of International Women's Day, member groups demanded "that policy makers and donors integrate responses to violence against women in global and national AIDS programmes and allocate resources to these responses." |
|
Church World Service, 202-481-6937
The relief and development agency Church World Service empowers women by supporting community-based initiatives including: a health program in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan led by female physicians and female volunteer community health workers and that has halved maternal and infant mortality; a program in Kenya that is improving local management of and access to water and helping women become leaders in their communities and which prevents over-the-border conflicts during droughts; and a women's literacy and economic development program in
Angola focused on empowering women for social change -- a program CWS hopesto expand to neighboring countries.
|
|
Habitat for Humanity International, 1-800-HABITAT
Throughout the world, gender discrimination makes housing insecure for millions of women. Widowed women and their children might find themselves homeless due to land grabbing, which is the case in most African countries. In working to eliminate poverty housing, Habitat for Humanity recognizes the challenge that discriminatory inheritance rights create for women and their children and has made an effort to help women better secure their basic right to decent housing. For example, Habitat for Humanity Mozambique conducts training on inheritance planning and the writing of wills. Women, armed with the information they acquire during the course of those trainings, are better able to protect themselves and their children against being forceful
|
|
International Medical Corps,
202-828-5155
International Medical Corps’ health-care programming aims to reduce maternal and child mortality, heal traumatic injuries caused by childbirth and sexual abuse, and enable safe deliveries of high-risk cases by incorporating emergency obstetric care in local hospitals and clinics. Critically, IMC also helps to rehabilitate health-care infrastructure and provides education and on-the-job training for local doctors, nurses, midwives, and traditional birth attendants so that women and children will have access to quality health care in the long-term.To help them get back on their feet after a disaster, International Medical Corps runs microfinance programs that give women the opportunity to earn their own income, delivers nutritious meals for them and their families, and offers education and training aimed at giving them the skills they need to care for themselves and their children, both financially and emotionally. |
|
International Relief and Development, Inc., 703-778-4292
IRD's Women First program uses a holistic approach to address concerns of rural women in Mozambique by integrating gender-focused HIV/AIDS activities with the economic and social development of women. IRD begins by creating connections between the private sector and local women's groups. In partnership with Unilever, IRD trains participants in small business skills and provides them with start-up baskets of products. Networks created by the women's groups are then used as a platform for nutrition, health and HIV support or peer education. Women participating in the program have the disposable income to access health care services and education, improve their food security and are able to negotiate healthier relationships with their partners. |
|
|
Interplast, 650-814-1798
Worldwide, just as many women worldwide suffer a severe burn from fire each year as are diagnosed with HIV or AIDS. More girls in South Asia die of fires than die of tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria combined. Women in that region lose more productive years from fire burns than from malaria and HIV/AIDS combined. Most burn-related disability is due to permanent contracture of the skin as the burn wound heals. By releasing contractures, surgeons restore movement and function to the afflicted areas. Interplast helps hundreds of women each year who survive burns—restoring their ability to walk or to use their hands through reconstructive surgery, reducing their disabilities and disfigurements, and helping them return to productive lives. |
|
|
Mobility International USA, 541-343-1284
MIUSA is recruiting for the 2008 Women’s Institute on Leadership and Disability (WILD). WILD will bring together grassroots women leaders with disabilities from around the world to build skills, exchange strategies, create new visions and strengthen international networks of support. The WILD program also includes the Gender, Disability and Development Institute (GDDI), where they will collaborate with international development agency representatives on inclusive development strategies. WILD women move forward in their roles as disabled world leaders, returning to their countries with new tools and a commitment to address issues of critical importance to women and girls. MIUSA is accepting donations to support women's participation. |
|
|
PACT, 202-466-5666
For several years Pact has implemented a breakthrough, fast-growing women’s empowerment program now reaching nearly 200,000 women. Called WORTH, the program provides poor women with banking, business and literacy skills. A recent outside evaluation found that six years after the first WORTH program ended two-thirds of the original 1,500 village banks were still operating and a quarter had started new banks. Using our own funds, Pact has committed to reaching one million women in Africa with WORTH. We know as women manage their assets and grow their incomes, they not only gain self-confidence but also achieve new-found respect as leaders and important forces for social change. This is what empowerment looks like. |
|
|
Share Foundation, 503-260-4325
In 2006 the SHARE Foundation began a literacy program entitled “Literate and Organized Women Make Productive Businesses.” Currently the program serves a total of 82 women from cooperatives and women’s associations in three municipalities of El Salvador. The literacy program is coordinated with the Ministry of Education and women obtain an elementary school certificate after completing the three-year program. The teachers use the Paulo Freire method of popular education that incorporates women’s own reality into the learning process.
The SHARE Foundation also helps women’s organizations by financing advocacy campaigns to raise consciousness about gender issues and the right to live without violence.
|
|
|
Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, 617 868 6600
On International Women's Day, March 8, 2008, UUSC will join millions of people around the world in honoring the struggles and celebrating the achievements of women in their fight for equal rights and justice. Spanning across cultures and continents, UUSC’s work in support of women places us on the frontlines of the global movement for gender justice.By visiting our page, you can read about UUSC’s efforts to end sexual and gender-based violence in Darfur, learn about a 71-year-old South African woman’s struggle for access to water, alongside UUSC's partner the Coalition Against Water Privatization and read a recent blog that highlights the leading role of women in Guatemala’s human-rights movement. |
|
|
United Methodist Committee on Relief,
212-870-3552
UMCOR Armenia is strengthening the role of women involved in agriculture, by integrating them into leadership roles in farmer organization management. UMCOR provides training for both male and female cooperative members on leadership, gender, women’s empowerment, the role of women in society, cooperative management, marketing, farm and financial management. Through these trainings, women have a right and responsibility to participate in activities including discussions and the decision-making process of their local cooperatives. To help address local community issues, Women’s Committees consisting of cooperative members are formed to help identify the most urgent social problems, analyze them and find solutions to help those most in need. |
|
|
Winrock International
In Nigeria, Winrock International's Capacity Building for AIDS Impact Mitigation Project (AIM) focuses in part on increasing access to productive resources and economic empowerment for HIV-infected/affected women. Funded by a USAID-administered PEPFAR grant, AIM trains selected HIV-infected/affected women, widows and single mothers in vocational and business skills and income generation, and awards in-kind grants up to $150. These women are also linked to existing business owners for mentoring in their chosen trade. AIM will "graduate" the most successful women to access micro loans from Oceanic Bank International, a project partner, with the intent of growing these businesses and promoting economically strong households for these women. |
|
|
World Emergency Relief, 760-448-3519 or 760-692-0019
World Emergency Relief (WER) promotes women’s empowerment, self-sustainability, literacy and freedom from sexual exploitation internationally. We believe that women should be treated equally and with respect, and be celebrated as the gifts from God that they are. In Thailand, WER’s rehabilitation program for sexually exploited women offers emergency aid, child-care, literacy and other educational programs, in addition to job training as an alternative to the sex trade industry. In Ghana, WER gives small loans to female Liberian refugees for micro-enterprise, as well as training for running their own business. In the Philippines, WER provides sexually abused girls with protection, treatment, literacy classes and other educational programs. |
|
|
World
Vision,
202-572-6325
World Vision’s Development Assistance Program in western Honduras, funded by USAID, has activities in La Cumbre focused on developing a coffee co-op to aid farmers–men and women–in selling their coffee at higher prices. Of the 35 members, 9 are women.“It is common for women to be coffee producers,” says Oscar Rodriguez, president of the co-op. “The most important thing is being united.”Gladys Mejia sold 7,600 pounds of her coffee through the co-op last year and says she felt supported by the men in the group and made a significant increase in her profits.“Coffee is hard work,” she said. “I hope to get other women involved in the co-op. At first they had doubts, but they are seeing what we achieved and are getting interested.” |
|
|
|
