By Urvashi Gandhi, Director of Advocacy, Breakthrough
11.30 a.m. I was sitting in classroom 8-C when my younger brother came running to call me home. The groom’s family was here. They wanted an early wedding. My father wanted me to go home immediately.
My mother wanted me to wear a sari.
No one asked me what I wanted.
The next day I spoke to my class teacher. I told her I wanted to study. She discussed it with the principal.
She, and fifteen of my classmates came to talk to my father. At first, my father refused to listen, and my classmates refused to leave.
Today, I am back at school. I am studying to take the board exam next year. I am to teach at my village school.
Reena Kumari (name changed), Ranchi
In states like Jharkhand (India), close to 40% of young girls are married before the age of 18.
Even though India has seen a dip in child/early marriage from 47% to 27% it still contributes to one-third of the world’s child brides. These reductions are primarily in the age group of 0-10 years, but adolescent girls still remain at high risk of early marriage. Continue Reading
Stamford, Conn. – March 21, 2019 – Americares is deploying an emergency response team to Mozambique to assess health needs and coordinate emergency shipments of medicine and relief supplies for Cyclone Idai survivors. Idai made landfall in Mozambique’s coastal city of Beira Thursday evening, flattening homes, destroying roads and causing widespread devastation as it continued its deadly path toward Zimbabwe and Malawi.
Approximately 2.6 million people across southeastern Africa were affected by the cyclone, making it one of the most devastating natural disasters in the region’s history. Reports indicate 90 percent of Beira was damaged or destroyed. According to officials, more than 500 deaths have been confirmed across the three countries and hundreds of people are reported missing. President Filipe Nyusi of Mozambique fears the death toll could climb to 1,000 as rescue workers struggle to reach the hardest-hit areas. Continue Reading
Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Remote Energy, Splash, and World Relief Seattle also awarded generous grants
March 20, 2019
SEATTLE – For the second year in a row, Global Washington collaborated with the University of Washington Department of Law, Societies, and Justice on a course called “Social Justice Through Philanthropy.”
Throughout the quarter, students learned about global giving and ethical philanthropy. They also put their learning to practical, real-world use by soliciting and reviewing proposals from 34 Global Washington non-profit members that are working in the areas of human rights, clean water, climate change, refugees, and education.
Photo courtesy of Law, Societies, and Justice (University of Washington).
“As a network of organizations within Washington state that are improving lives in developing countries, Global Washington seeks to connect, promote and strengthen our members to have a greater collective impact,” said Kristen Dailey, executive director of Global Washington. “This unique collaboration with the University of Washington allows us to elevate our members’ work with new audiences, attract funding for some amazing non-profits, and also raise the consciousness of younger generations who are interested in helping solve global challenges.”
Funding for the grants was made possible by The Philanthropy Lab , a private foundation dedicated to increasing philanthropy education at U.S. universities.
“After completing this course, my students have a better grasp of the privilege and responsibilities that go along with philanthropic giving,” said Stephen Meyers, assistant professor in the UW Department of Law, Societies, and Justice. “Who knows if they may one day become philanthropists themselves, but regardless of how they choose to use the knowledge, they now understand what it takes to make a lasting impact.”
Stamford, Conn. – March 20, 2019 – Americares is preparing emergency shipments of medicine and relief supplies to help families affected by Tropical Cyclone Idai in Mozambique. The deadly storm lashed the city of Beira in central Mozambique Thursday evening before barreling inland toward Zimbabwe and Malawi.
Approximately 2.6 million people were affected by the cyclone across three countries and reports indicate 90 percent of Beira was damaged or destroyed. According to officials, more than 200 deaths have been reported in Mozambique alone and hundreds of others are reported missing. Officials fear the death toll could reach as high as 1,000 people as rescue workers struggle to reach some of the hardest-hit areas. Continue Reading
A crowd of Seattleites of all ages gathered on Friday, March 8, at the SIFF Theater Seattle premiere screening of the latest chapter of Girl Rising’s short film, Brave Girl Rising. The CEO of Girl Rising, Christina Lowery, participated in a panel discussion after the showing, along with the executive director of Global Washington, Kristen Dailey, and the executive director of the International Rescue Committee in Seattle, Nicky Smith. Continue Reading
March 1, 2019 — The Economist’s international editor Simon Long travelled to two WaterAid projects in India last month and has published a special report on water scarcity.
“Thirsty World” is a six-part series which takes a look at how climate change, population growth and poor management are bringing the global water crisis to a breaking point.
International Women’s Day was last Friday, March 8, and in honor of the day Global Washington announced our new Women of the World program. This learning network of female philanthropists who care about global issues is an expansion of the Women of the World annual breakfast, which the Seattle International Foundation transitioned to Global Washington in 2018. More information about Women of the World will be available on the GlobalWA website shortly.
Also in honor of International Women’s Day, Global Washington is elevating the issue of ending child marriage and discussing effective interventions from our GlobalWA member organizations. When a girl is married at an early age, this often means she stops attending school, is more vulnerable to abuse, and faces greater health risks, especially if she becomes pregnant. Fortunately, the practice of early marriage is in decline. In order to eliminate this practice altogether by 2030, as outlined in the targets for Sustainable Development Goal 5 (“Gender Equality”), the global community will need to accelerate efforts to promote the rights and well-being of girls and young women.
Learn more about promising efforts in our profile of an incredibly inspiring Changemaker, Perla Vázquez, who is the deputy program director at the Seattle International Foundation’s Central America & Mexico Youth Fund (CAMY Fund). We also explore how World Concern’s scholarships in Bangladesh help girls stay in school and reduce the pressure on their families to see them marry at a young age. By working with communities to change norms around early marriage, our members are catalyzing transformational change that helps break long-standing cycles of poverty. Our event on March 27, Vowing to End Child Marriage by 2030, will continue this conversation, with speakers from World Concern, UNICEF USA, and CAMY Fund. I hope you can join us!
Two girls pose for a photo outside their school in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Photo by Taylor Jashinsky for World Concern.
Imagine being a 9-year-old girl, with dreams of becoming a teacher one day. You love school and learning and spending time with your friends. But at home, your father is talking about finding you a husband – not when you’re in your twenties, educated and working. No, now.
Child marriage is a violation of international human rights law. Yet around the world, about 650 million of the women and girls alive today were married before their 18th birthday, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). By 2030, it’s estimated that more than 150 million girls will become child brides. The problem affects young boys as well, but to a much lesser degree than girls. In 2015, UNICEF estimated that about 18 percent of children married before age 18 are boys, while the rest are girls.
No doubt there has been progress. Concerted efforts to eliminate the practice have successfully averted about 25 million child marriages over the last decade: Whereas one in four women and girls were married as children 10 years ago, that ratio has dropped to one in five. But UNICEF warns that progress is not nearly fast enough to eliminate the practice by 2030, as laid out in UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5. In fact, the agency says that the rate of progress needs to be 12 times faster than in the past decade to meet the target, and right now, not a single region in the world is on track to do so.
While South Asia has improved the most, UNICEF reports that girls in Latin America and the Caribbean are still just as likely to become child brides as their mothers were. Meanwhile, early and forced marriage is actually expected to increase in Sub-Saharan Africa, because the population is growing rapidly, but progress in eliminating the practice has been slowest in the world. Currently, 38 percent of girls in Sub-Saharan Africa become child brides.
But it’s not just a practice in the developing world. In the U.S., child marriage under certain circumstances, like parental or judicial consent, was legal in every state until last year, when New Jersey and Delaware completely banned marriage under age 18.
Why does forcing children into early marriages occurs on such a large scale around the world? According to Girls Not Brides, the reasons vary from community to community, but some of the main drivers of the practice are gender inequality, tradition, poverty and insecurity. In many contexts where the practice is common, girls are seen as economic burdens on their family. Marriage, therefore, is a way to pass that burden onto another man. In cultures where the bride’s family pays the groom a dowry, they often pay less when the bride is young and uneducated. Plan International also notes that certain cultures consider younger wives to be more obedient, while some families think marriage will protect their girls from sexual violence.
But that is not true, according to Plan, as girls married early are “more likely to experience violence, abuse and forced sexual relations.” They also face a higher risk of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, because usually they are less educated about safe sex, have less say about how to practice sex and are subjected to unprotected sex with husbands who often have prior sexual partners. But perhaps the most dangerous consequence of early marriage is early pregnancy. According to Girls Not Brides, the biggest killer of girls aged 15 to 19 globally is complications in pregnancy and childbirth. Perhaps that’s why SDG 5 identifies child marriage as a harmful practice on par with female genital mutilation.
In addition to serious health consequence, child marriage also forces children to drop out of school, take on adult responsibilities, spend their time on unpaid household work and give up their dreams. This in turn often keeps them trapped in a cycle of poverty.
But the problems aren’t strictly confined to child marriage. UNICEF points out that cohabitation – when a girl isn’t legally married to a man but is his caregiver and lives “in union” with him as if they’re married – can often be more problematic. The lack of legal status as a wife can undermine a girl’s rights to inheritance, citizenship and social recognition.
All these risks contribute to girls being among the world’s most vulnerable populations, who must be protected by laws. But as Plan International points out, it’s not enough for legislators to set the legal age of marriage to 18. The laws must also be enforced and awareness of them spread. Youth activists in some communities are using mediums like radio, music and theater to teach about children’s rights.
But many of the leading interventions to protect children from early and forced marriage center around education. UNICEF reports that in many countries, every year of secondary education reduces the likelihood that a child gets married before age 18 by five percentage points or more. Staying in school allows girls to not only increase their earning potential, but it often also provides more safety and security, better health and more agency to make their own life decisions. Unfortunately, in many of the communities where child marriage is prevalent, sending a child to school – particularly a girl – is not an expense that many families prioritize. Often, it’s more economical to just marry off their daughter.
That’s why World Concern offers scholarships to girls who are at risk of child marriage, effectively taking the financial decision off the table for families. CARE also includes empowerment activities in their girls’ education programs to help girls build confidence and leadership skills. And in many rural communities, girls have no educated and working role models, so CARE builds houses for female teachers to live in these communities that otherwise have no female teachers.
Some organizations also focus on increasing girls’ (and boys’) access to youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services. These services included sexual education and family planning, which teach girls’ and their communities about children’s rights and puts them in a better position to decide if and when to have children.
But some advocates say that in order to fully eradicate the practice, the conversation around child marriage has to change.
“I find the term ‘child marriage’ an oxymoron, because you cannot have ‘child’ and ‘marriage’ in the same phrase,” Jemimah Njuki, a senior program officer at Canada’s International Development Research Centre, said in a recent interview with BRIGHT Magazine. “We’re talking about the sexual abuse of children.”
Njuki says that sanitizing the practice by “couch[ing it] within the respectable institution of marriage” is undermining efforts to eliminate it.
“If we change the conversation to one of child sex abuse, then we focus on the man who is doing it, as well as the cultural beliefs that condone it,” she says.
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The following Global Washington members are working to end early marriage through their work.
More than one in four girls in India is married before the legal age of 18 years, thereby subjecting them to a lifetime of ill health, neglect and violence. Breakthrough today reaches over 400,000 adolescents across five states in India to help change this bleak situation. The organization does this by building the agency of girls to believe in themselves and to demand their rights to health and education. Breakthrough also works with girls’ families and communities to ensure they value girls and have faith in their potential, so that girls can thrive. While this is a slow process, results are already visible – for example, in its program areas in Jharkhand, Breakthrough has been able to increase the age at which girls are married by 1.7 years. Learn more at https://inbreakthrough.org/focus-area/early-marriage/
Founded in 1945 with the creation of the CARE Package®, CARE is a leading humanitarian organization working in 93 countries to fight global poverty. Women and girls are at the heart of CARE’s community-based efforts to improve education and health, create economic opportunity, respond to emergencies and confront hunger. Through CARE programs such as A Future She Deserves, CARE is working to prevent and eliminate child, early and forced marriages with a goal of reaching over 1 million girls and their families. CARE places a special focus on addressing child marriage in crisis zones, where girls are especially vulnerable. Girls in these contexts, such as those from Syrian refugee families, are often married off for income, legal status or perceived protection. CARE works together with community leaders and partners to change social norms so that vulnerable girls and young women can achieve their aspirations.
Under the umbrella of its Center for Women’s Land Rights, Landesa’s Girls Project in West Bengal, India, aimed to improve the social and economic status of girls, and thereby reduce their many vulnerabilities in the short and long-term, including early marriage. Around the world, land is a source of wealth, status, and opportunity. But rights to land are not equitably distributed to all. By increasing girls’ and communities’ understanding of girls’ land-related rights and helping girls to use land to create assets, girls can demonstrate their value, gain some control over their futures, and are better equipped with the skills and understanding necessary to exercise their land rights as adults.
Mercy Corps works to empower and educate girls and delay early marriage through initiatives like girl groups and accelerated educational opportunities. In Niger, which has the highest child marriage rate in the world (3 in 4 girls marry before their 18th birthday), Mercy Corps has established safe spaces in 20 rural communities for over 3,000 out-of-school adolescent girls. Here girls can discuss topics like family planning, health and nutrition, and education. As a result, 93% of girls enrolled could name at least one benefit to delaying early pregnancy. Also in Niger, Mercy Corps implemented a two-year accelerated program that helps girls finish primary school and re-enter and complete high school. After the first two years, 90% of students graduated and 95% of community members and parents reported that it was important for girls to postpone marriage so they could finish their education.
Oxfam America is a global organization working to right the wrongs of poverty, hunger, and injustice. As one of 19 members of the international Oxfam confederation, Oxfam America works with people in more than 90 countries to create lasting solutions. Oxfam believes that young people, especially girls, have the right to decide freely if and when to marry as well as to make informed choices about their sexual and reproductive health and rights, in a supportive environment. Through its “Creating Spaces” programme to take action on violence against women and girls, and its work with partners through the “More Than Brides Alliance,” Oxfam works to reduce child marriage and its adverse effects on young women and girls in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nepal, the Philippines, Malawi, Niger, and Mali. Learn more at https://www.oxfam.ca/project/creating-spaces and https://morethanbrides.org.
Sahar creates opportunities in Afghanistan that empower and inspire children and their families to build peaceful, thriving communities. It achieves this by building schools and designing educational programs that address key barriers that keep girls from accessing and completing their education. In Northern Afghanistan, for example, an estimated 57% of girls are married before the legal age of 16. While early education is encouraged, girls are often forced into early marriage around age 12 or 13, and drop out of school. Sahar’s Early Marriage Prevention Program inspires girls to continue their education and empowers them to become leaders in their community. It also equips them to advocate for themselves by increasing their knowledge of potential educational opportunities and an understanding of their legal rights. Each year, Sahar reaches 500 girls directly, and more than 2,000 community members.
The CAMY Fund works to address and prevent child marriage and early unions in Latin America and the Caribbean through a multipronged approach that includes advocacy, convening, grant making, and research. The CAMY Fund is a leading actor on the issue in the region, and tirelessly promotes keeping girls and young women at the center of the discussions that affect them directly, and consciousness of the cultural, social and political context that makes the practice of child marriage manifest in this diverse region with large impoverished, rural and indigenous communities. The CAMY Fund is a program of the Seattle International Foundation, and its child marriage initiative receives funding support from the Ford Foundation, Novo Foundation and Summit Foundation. Read more here: http://unionestempranas.org/en/lac-initiative/
750 million girls and women today were married before their 18th birthday. This practice is a fundamental violation of human rights and causes girls to lose valuable economic, educational, and social opportunities. If current trends continue, the number of girls and women married as children will reach nearly one billion before 2030. UNICEF works with governments to sustainably address the root causes of child marriage by strengthening systems and working to end harmful behavioral practices. In 2015, the global community made a strong commitment to ending this problem by endorsing UN SDG 5.3, which aims to “eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriages and female genital mutilation.” This target has the power to influence a number of other goals on the agenda, including those around clean water, poverty, nutrition, health, education, economic grown and the reduction of inequality.
World Concern is a Christian global relief and development organization that partners with isolated and impoverished communities beyond the end of the road to give them access to clean water, sustainable food options, healthcare, education, and other necessities of life. By first listening to leaders within a community, World Concern helps it determine primary needs and goals, empowering families to own the work, which brings transformation that lasts. One of the vital aspects of World Concern’s work is the effort to change cultural norms regarding child marriage. By providing scholarships for girls to attend school and building awareness of the dangers of child marriage in communities, World Concern is helping young women gain a brighter future. This breaks the cycle of poverty within a family and benefits the entire community. World Concern operates transformational community development programs in Haiti, Kenya, South Sudan, Somalia, Chad, Uganda, DRC, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, Yemen, and Syria.
The World Justice Project is an independent, multidisciplinary organization working to advance the rule of law around the world. Effective rule of law reduces corruption, combats poverty and disease, and protects people from injustices large and small. It is the foundation for communities of justice, opportunity, and peace—underpinning development, accountable government, and respect for fundamental rights. In recent years, significant strides have been made in advancing legislation to prevent child marriage. Trinidad and Tobago, Guatemala, and El Salvador have all amended a number of marriage acts and loopholes that had outlawed underage marriage. Malawi—a country that consistently ranks among the world’s top twenty nations with the highest prevalence of child marriage—removed a provision that permitted child marriage if the parents consented.
World Concern – Ending child marriage begins by keeping girls in school
By Joanne Lu
Salma (far right) presents to her preschool class (2018). Photo provided by World Concern.
Salma is a preschool teacher in rural Bangladesh. She’s a high-school graduate and plans to continue her education in college. In a country where an estimated 45 percent of girls drop out of secondary school, Salma is a big deal.
But just four years ago, at 14 years of age, Salma was among millions of girls who live in absolute fear of being forced into marriage, likely to an older man. As a girl from a poor family in Bangladesh, which has the fourth highest rate of child marriage in the world, according to UNICEF, and the second highest number of child brides – nearly 4.5 million in 2017 – Salma was staring down the barrel of child marriage.
That is, until she received a scholarship from World Concern to stay in school. The UN Population Fund says that girls who have a secondary education are up to six times less likely to be married off before their 18th birthday. That’s why World Concern believes the solution is to keep girls in school, especially when their families can’t afford it.
The scholarship is just one component of World Concern’s holistic approach to what they call “transformational development” in the world’s poorest and hardest-to-reach places. Over its 65-year history, World Concern has refined the ways it addresses not just physical and economic needs, but emotional and spiritual, as well – taking into account the whole person.
“We believe that every human being is created in the image of God,” says Cathy Herholdt, World Concern’s senior communications director. “Every human being deserves to have their basic needs met and have an abundant life. That faith is what drives us; it’s why we do what we do.”
That belief also guides their transformational development approach, in which communities take charge of their own development. Instead of a top-down approach, World Concern works alongside communities to identify their greatest needs, their greatest assets and how they want to improve. It’s also why 95 percent of World Concern’s staff are nationals from the 15 countries in which they work across South and Southeast Asia, East Africa, Haiti, and the Middle East.
Herholdt says that over the 30 years that World Concern has worked in Bangladesh, they’ve seen how child marriage is a “scourge” that’s keeps people trapped in a cycle of poverty and causes extreme physical and emotional harm to young girls.
“Literally, they’re terrified,” Herholdt says about the girls she has interviewed.
Often the girls’ mothers were themselves married as children, and they talk about how it took all their choice and freedom away. They don’t want that life for their daughters, but in a male-dominated society, where spending even $50 to $100 a year to send a child to school is too costly for a family earning a dollar a day, parents often feel like they have no choice.
Salma (left), poses with other scholarship recipients (2015). Photo provided by World Concern.
World Concern’s scholarships give girls and families the choice to keep their daughters in school until they’re past the age of forced marriage and to break the cycle of poverty by setting them up for better jobs and futures.
The effects are spreading beyond families into entire communities. For example, World Concern is helping women’s groups (or “federations,” as they call themselves) learn about the impacts of child marriage, why it’s better for girls to be in school, how to prevent child marriage and how to spread that message.
These women are banding together to form a powerful voice and actually effect change from within their communities. When they hear that a family is considering marrying off their young daughter, if just one of them goes to confront the father, it often doesn’t go well and can even be dangerous. But when they all go together to come alongside the family and share why it’s a bad idea and that there are better options, they say they’re often successful in stopping the child marriage.
“It’s coming from within the community,” says Herholdt. “It’s a very powerful thing to see.”
As daughters watch their mothers step up to protect them and each other, girls are also finding ways to replicate that empowerment through youth health and hygiene clubs and other group support systems. Boys are also watching their sisters excel in school, while their mothers run businesses and become community leaders. This, says Herholdt, is how culture changes holistically.
At the moment, World Concern’s child marriage program is primarily in Bangladesh as well as a few other countries, like Kenya, Chad and Somalia, where the issue is prevalent. But Herholdt says they’re excited to continue expanding their transformational development work into new areas that are the hardest places right now, including Syria, Yemen, and South Sudan.
“We’re moving away from one-off sectors and focusing on how and where we can have greater impact with our holistic approach,” says Herholdt. “We’re letting that drive who we are and how we do our work.”
Perla Vázquez, Deputy Program Director at the Seattle International Foundation CAMY Fund
By Arielle Dreher
Perla Vázquez is no stranger to activism or feminism. She recalls being a 15-year-old activist in her hometown, advocating for teens’ rights and later for women’s rights in her own community. Vázquez, born and raised in Mexico City, where she still lives, took her passions and made them her career.
“I think it’s very important that every person—and every woman—can decide for themselves who they share their lives with,” Vázquez says.
This sentiment is, indeed, at the heart of her work. As a young activist, she was a director at ELIGE, a feminist youth organization in Mexico, which advocates for sexual and reproductive rights for young people. Vázquez studied political science at the Autonomous Metropolitan University and has her master’s degree in international cooperation for development from the Mora Institute.
Vázquez worked as a regional specialist in the Americas for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Plan International, and she is a current board member on FRIDA, a young feminist fund.
Vázquez currently works for the Seattle International Foundation’s Central America & Mexico Youth Fund (The CAMY Fund). She joined the Seattle International Foundation team in 2017 as a project manager for The CAMY Fund’s Child Marriage Initiative, and she is now the CAMY Fund’s deputy program director.
ELIGE, which Vázquez still gets to work with today in her role at CAMY, advocates for national reforms needed for youth in Mexico, particularly in regards to reproductive health. For example, in the public health sector, only women who are of the legal marrying age by the country’s standards are allowed to receive access to things like condoms, Vázquez said. This precludes young women, who are not yet 18 years old from receiving reproductive health services they want or need. ELIGE works to change these types of laws nationally.
The Seattle International Foundation started the CAMY Fund in 2014. It has since invested close to $3 million in over 30 non-profits and youth collectives in Central America and Mexico that are working on sexual and reproductive rights, as well as women’s rights, including secondary school retention and ending early, forced and child marriages. Culturally, these topics can be difficult to tackle in Central America and Mexico, Vázquez says, particularly ending early marriages.
The CAMY model includes funding, technical assistance, and convening for groups that are led by young adults, much like Vázquez herself, and work in all parts of advocacy and education locally and nationally in Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Mexico.
Perla Vázquez leading a workshop at the Latin American Regional Youth Convention to Prevent Early Unions, held in Guatemala, March 2018. Photo provided by The Seattle International Foundation.
While other countries and continents struggle to end forced marriages of young girls, the majority of early marriages in Latin America happen when a young woman is between 14 and 17 years old. Vázquez said this is unique to the region culturally because it happens at all class levels—in rich and poor communities—and in countries that might have laws prohibiting marriage before the age of 18. It is also easy in some communities to lie about a young woman’s age in order to marry her off.
“It is very complex,” she said. “For example, in Guatemala it is forbidden for a person to get married before the age of 18, but that does not limit the cultural practice of getting married sooner, especially in communities with more corruption.”
In some indigenous communities in Central America, there are two sets of law in play, as well, Vázquez said, and while national law might prohibit marriage before the age of 18, local law might not.
Often when a marriage is forced, the young woman is seen as a part of a trade agreement or a commodity exchanged by families, both rich and poor.
“The structural problem in the society is that women are seen as objects without rights,” Vázquez said.
Many forced marriages in this region are between young teenaged girls and much older men. For example, a 15-year-old could be married off to a 25 or 35-year-old. This is seen as a cultural norm in some places, Vázquez said, and some groups that CAMY Fund supports work in these communities to challenge these norms by educating young women and men about women’s rights, especially in marriage. The work is vast, as education for parents and men (especially in schools) does not promote women’s rights or feminism. Recent studies in Guatemala show that educated men still prefer wives who are much younger than they are, continuing the cycle of young women being married off well before they have an opportunity to see if they want to pursue other options.
“We have been working on child marriage through different approaches because it is really the responsibility of the parents and the adults—not the young people,” Vázquez said.
Adults need to be willing to have conversations as well as educate their families in order to keep young women from marrying young. One group funded by CAMY in Nicaragua, Fundación Mujer y Desarrollo Económico Comunitario (The Foundation for Women and Community Economic Development), works with mothers and daughters to educate and improve relationships, as well as to break culturally held beliefs that marriage is the only option for their daughters.
“This process in Nicaragua was very, very interesting because they discovered the importance for both mothers and their daughters to understand that their daughters can decide their futures,” Vázquez said.
Education is a central tenant of many of the organizations that CAMY funds, with social media campaigns and websites in Spanish and Portuguese that local communities can read and understand about reproductive and sexual health. Vázquez said that changing how men think about marriage and women is also important to ending young marriage in Latin America. The patriarchal portrayal of marriage can be damaging, Vázquez said, especially to women who are subjected to violence or abuse if a man uses the marriage as a way to exert power.
“I think it is very complex in Latin America,” Vázquez said. “We need to change the perspective of love and couples, especially the role of men.”
While the work never stops, progress is possible. Last year, CAMY and other organizations pushed for research in Latin America that took a feminist approach. For Vázquez, this is part of her everyday work, as she travels internationally, sharing the methods and research from groups that CAMY funds, as well as presenting the strategies that local youth-focused and youth-led groups use to bring about change. Ultimately, the work comes down to young women learning from a young age that their bodies are their own.
“They can take possession of their own bodies, and they can decide whether or not they want to be romantically involved with someone,” she said. “That is not something that the family can decide. Women do not belong to their families; they are not objects to be exchanged.”
Please welcome our newest Global Washington members. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with their work and consider opportunities for support and collaboration!
Hunger Project
The Hunger Project is an organization committed to the sustainable end of world hunger. It has ongoing programs in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where it implements programs aimed at mobilizing rural grassroots communities to achieve sustainable progress in health, education, nutrition and family income. thp.org
Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation
The Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation’s aims to increase awareness of the US public and policymakers vis-a-vis the humanitarian crises underway in Yemen, and support relief and reconstruction, while facilitating peace campaigns. yemenfoundation.org
Don’t miss your chance to attract new donors to support your organization. The deadline to register for GiveBIG is Friday March 29. By that day you also need to have paid your registration fees or you will not be able to participate. GiveBIG raised $16,500,000 last year. It is easy to register and once you are registered you can participate for free in the GiveBIG fundraising trainings with Ariel Glassman from Ostara. 501 Commons is also providing Fundraising Accelerator to help you mount a successful campaign. Every two weeks 501 Commons will send you specific actions you can take to prepare for GiveBIG.
Mark Your Calendar
March 29: Registration deadline for all new and returning nonprofits
April 19: Last day for profile changes
April 23: Early Giving begins
April 28: Seattle Times Giving Guide published
May 7: Early Giving ends
May 8: GiveBIG!
If you have questions or need assistance contact 501 Commons by phone at 1-833-962-3615 or by email at givebig@501commons.org
SEATTLE – On International Women’s Day, Global Washington (GlobalWA), the leading association in Washington state that connects companies, foundations, and non-profit organizations to improve lives in developing countries, announced the formation of a new network of female philanthropists, Women of the World.
Women of the World members have access to a learning network of other female philanthropists who care deeply about global issues and global development experts who are improving lives. This unique network solely focused on global issues is an expansion of the annual Women of the World breakfast, which the Seattle International Foundation transitioned to Global Washington in 2018. Global Washington will leverage its established network of over 100 global non-profit organizations to provide quality content for Women of the World.
“By establishing the Women of the World network, we are creating a space where philanthropists can increase their understanding of global issues with a community of their peers,” said Kristen Dailey, executive director of Global Washington. “This is first and foremost a learning network, but it also increases Global Washington’s ability to strengthen non-profit organizations that are working in developing countries.”
Female philanthropists who join Global Washington as “Women of the World” members are eligible to participate in year-round programming and help shape the beloved annual breakfast. The network will also include women under 40 who are new to global philanthropy and diverse voices to create dynamic conversations.
“The Women of the World network fills an unmet need in global giving,” said Melissa Merritt, Global Washington Board Member and charter WoW member. “For many female philanthropists who are new to global issues, or are looking to expand their giving, there are so few spaces where they can ask questions and share knowledge in a trusted setting. I am so excited to see this vibrant network grow and flourish.”
For more information about Women of the World membership and eligibility criteria, please contact Doni Uyeno (doni@globalwa.org).
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About Global Washington
Global Washington is a non-profit association that supports the global development community in Washington state. Together with our members, we are working to create a healthier and more equitable world. We promote our members, bring them together to spark new ideas and partnerships, and build a network of leaders who are improving lives around the world. Learn more at globalwa.org
Women carry so much of the world’s burdens. Across the globe, women and girls overwhelmingly shoulder the burden of unpaid and labor-intensive household duties. For those who work in factories and on farms, the work in the home doesn’t go away—the women simply wake up earlier. As development organizations and agencies increasingly identify women’s economic freedom as the key not only to empowering women but also unlocking benefits that uplift whole communities, it seems that women now also shoulder the burden of saving the world.
Empowering women economically and realizing its subsequent benefits for communities is easy in theory, but much harder to implement. On February 7th, Global Washington hosted an all-female-identifying panel to share their insights and expertise on using women’s economic empowerment to catalyze their leadership and improve rights for all. This panel was moderated by Teresa Guillien, Managing Program Director, Resource Media. Speakers included Anna Banks, Chief Marketing Officer, Fair Trade USA; Mara Bolis, Associate Director of Women’s Economic Empowerment, Oxfam America; and Dar Vanderbeck, Chief Innovation Officer, CARE. Continue Reading
There is a growing understanding that placing women at the center of global development programs is critical to short- and long-term success. When it comes to economic empowerment, statistic show that when a woman gains her own income, she prioritizes investing in her children’s education and other family needs. This has an economic ripple effect from the household to the community and all the way up to strengthening national economies.
Sarah Hendriks, who heads up Gender Equality at The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, shared at the Global Washington conference last December that economic empowerment of women is also a powerful lever to achieving gender equity.
Global Washington member organizations have documented the increase in agency, voice and choice when a woman gains her own income. Increasingly, organizations are more intention in achieving this empowerment outcome through their economic development programs.
Unfortunately, this is not as simple as it sounds. Multiple barriers keep women from having a stronger voice in their household and community. Continuing with our theme of exploring solutions to so-called “wicked problems,” this month we have been unpacking the opportunity that economic empowerment of women presents, one that also often leads to greater civic engagement and political participation.
In our newsletter, we explore how Fair Trade USA’s model supports women’s economic opportunity and local leadership. We also profile Abby Maxman, Oxfam America’s president and CEO. If you missed our panel event earlier this month with senior leaders from Oxfam America, Fair Trade USA and CARE USA, you can watch the video recording here.
Global Washington is also supporting events focused on empowering women and girls in February and around International Women’s Day in early March. Check out our event page and I hope to see you at one of our up-coming events.
How Women’s Economic Empowerment Energizes Political Participation
By Joanne Lu
Zipporah, 23, who goes by “Zippy,” didn’t believe she had much of a future in Kenya. After receiving financial training and being connected to a business mentor, Zippy has become a leader in her youth group, as well as a savvy entrepreneur with two clothing shops and a cybercafe. She now sees herself as someone who can effect change in her community, and she says she intends to run for local office in the next election. Photo: Corinna Robbins / Mercy Corps.
Last November, American women made history when a record number of women won seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. This was not just a win for women. Research shows that when women have decision-making power, communities as a whole benefit.
Yet in many developing countries around the world, women struggle to even have a voice in their own homes. However, global development practitioners are finding that when women have more economic freedom, they often also gain voice and agency at the household level, community level and even beyond.
Women and girls are disproportionately affected by poverty, discrimination and exploitation. Globally, they bear the lion’s share of unpaid household work, which according to a recent Oxfam report would be equal to about $10 trillion in annual sales at a single company – or about 43 times that of Apple. If they do have access to employment opportunities, they’re often insecure, low-wage jobs, according to UN Women. Gender discrimination also hampers their access to assets – like land and loans – and their ability to make economic and social decisions.
All in all, poverty cannot be eradicated without gender equality.
That’s why development organizations and agencies have been focused on reaching women with economic empowerment programs. These include savings, cash transfers, microcredit, financial literacy training, skills training, cooperatives, market access, and other initiatives to help them gain access to economic resources.
The UN identifies three economic interventions that have proven to work for all women: savings, child-care provision and land rights. Other interventions are rated as proven or promising for poor, very poor, young and/or all women. For example, networks and mentors are promising for all women, while conditional cash transfers and demand-driven job services are proven to work for young women.
Global Washington member Awamaki helps women’s associations start and run small businesses that create artisanal products. According to Awamaki’s founder and executive director, Kennedy Leavens, the organization was founded on the belief that “income in the hands of women is the best way to lift communities out of poverty.”
“Women know what their children and their communities need and they make those investments when they have the means to do so,” she says.
At the household level, the extra income allows women to have more say in economic decision-making, often for the benefit of the whole family. Studies have found that women spend about 90 percent of their earned income on their families – for better food, school fees, health care – compared to men, who spend 30 to 40 percent on their families. For some, the extra savings, loans or income means they can start a business that serves their communities, as well.
But perhaps the most transformational impact is the empowerment.
CARE actually defines women’s economic empowerment as the process by which women increase not only their right to economic resources, but also their power to make decisions that benefit themselves, their families and their communities.
“When women earn an income, it makes them no longer dependent on men, so they have respectability,” says Conchi Maravilla, a coordinator for Oxfam’s Saving for Change program in El Salvador. “The women support each other, and it radiates out into the community.”
Oxfam’s Saving for Change program is a village savings and loans program that teaches women how to save money regularly, borrow from the groups’ pooled funds and repay loans with interest. Gathering regularly for savings groups, cooperatives or other economic activities has been shown to increase women’s confidence, facilitate collective action and improve their ability to negotiate with men.
According to Oxfam, “empowered women members” of their Saving for Change program have since asked for a suite of training modules to further increase their economic and political participation. For example, the “SfC + Citizenship” module teaches members about ID cards, paying taxes, having birth certificates for their children, voting, running for office and holding local leaders accountable for public services.
“Saving for Change is as much about strengthening member’s voices as it is about increasing their financial inclusion,” the organization’s website says.
According to Oxfam, participation in the savings groups are empowering women to get involved with – and even elected to – local decision-making bodies like village and municipal councils and water boards.
“Women participate in a more active way now,” Carlos Antonio Diaz, the mayor of Gualococti, El Salvador, told Oxfam. “Their capacity to speak out is more developed, and they have more positive self-esteem, which is important. They are more active than men in the community here.”
Women’s economic empowerment is an end goal in itself even as it serves as a means to women’s political participation. In the same way, women’s political participation is an end, but it can also be a great means of accelerating sustainable development, economically and otherwise.
Some suggest that gender equality in politics promotes gender equality in the workforce, which, according to a 2015 study, could double women’s contributions to global GDP growth. Women who have been empowered by financial inclusion programs are also influencing public policy from local to national levels for better labor laws, better representation in government, and greater investments in education and health for women and girls.
As Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of Oxfam International, said a few years ago, “…when you have more women in public decision-making, you get policies that benefit women, children and families in general.”
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The following Global Washington members are supporting women’s economic empowerment and increased political agency.
Awamaki
Awamaki partners with women’s artisan cooperatives to create economic opportunities and improve well-being. The women knit, weave and host tourists in the rural Peruvian Andes. The organization helps them start and run successful cooperative businesses so they can earn income and lead their communities out of poverty. awamaki.org
CARE USA
Founded in 1945 with the creation of the CARE Package®, CARE is a leading humanitarian organization working in 93 countries to fight global poverty. Women and girls are at the heart of CARE’s community-based efforts to improve education and health, create economic opportunity, respond to emergencies and confront hunger. For over 25 years, CARE has been providing economic opportunities to women through its globally-recognized Village Savings and Loans Association model. A VSLA is a self-managed group that meets regularly and provides a safe place to save money, access loans, and get emergency insurance. CARE has directly supported nearly 7 million members in VSLAs across 45 countries. VSLAs provide unparalleled access to savings and credit for low-income women, accelerating their economic success and ability to navigate life’s inevitable shocks. The social networks they create empower women to join forces, raise their voices and achieve their goals. In Niger alone, one-third of women participating in local government come from VSLA groups initiated by CARE. https://www.care.org
Fair Trade USA
Fair Trade USA is a nonprofit organization and the leading certifier of Fair Trade products in North America. The organization’s rigorous standards around agricultural and factory production help protect fundamental human rights, ensure safe, healthy working conditions, protect the environment, and deliver additional economic resources to producing communities. Additionally, Fair Trade standards include a baseline price to protect farmers when the market dips too low, and ensures that producers earn additional Community Development Funds to address their pressing needs. Many groups vote to spend this money on projects that benefit women, like cervical cancer screenings, scholarships, child care centers and microloans for income diversification. https://www.fairtradecertified.org
Global Partnerships
Global Partnerships’ Women Centered Finance with Education and Health investment initiatives have invested $187 million in 65 partners in 17 countries across Latin America, the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa. Through these strategies Global Partnerships invests in enterprises that deliver credit to female microenterpreneurs along with access to a savings account, education and/or basic health services. With access to these services, women living in poverty are able to improve their health and economic position as they practice prevention, seek timely treatment, make more informed decisions, smooth household income and consumption, build assets, and better deal with health and economic shocks. https://globalpartnerships.org
Grameen Foundation
Grameen Foundation is dedicated to enabling the poor, especially women, to create a world without poverty and hunger. The foundation’s programs connect poor rural women and their households to essential financial, health and agricultural products, while also building empowering ecosystems that support women’s breakthroughs. Access to financial services and training, in combination with structured “gender dialogues,” propel women’s economic empowerment. Working through women’s self-help groups and community partners, Grameen Foundation guides dialogues about traditional gender roles and their impacts on family well-being. This integrated approach increases women’s autonomy and encourages more gender-equitable decision-making in households on issues from finances to family planning. With increased capacity and autonomy, women are able to achieve greater economic empowerment in the family and beyond. https://grameenfoundation.org
Landesa
Landesa champions and works to secure land rights, a powerful tool to promote social justice and create opportunity for millions of people living in poverty around the world. For women especially, land rights can be transformative to their social and economic empowerment within households and communities. Equipped with secure land rights, women gain a stronger voice in household decision-making, spending, and management of their land. The resulting benefits can include greater savings and financial stability, improved nutrition and food security, and increased spending on education and health care, creating a ripple effect for women, their families, and whole communities. For more than 50 years, working across 50 countries, Landesa has helped strengthen land rights for an estimated 125 million families. https://www.landesa.org
Mercy Corps
Mercy Corps helps girls and women build economic independence by providing financial services such as grants, loans and community savings groups, mentorship and job training. For example, in Kenya, Mercy Corps helped girls develop skills to manage and sell small livestock, like bees and chickens, which improved girls’ average monthly incomes from $6 to $56 in West Pokot and from $26 to $87 in Turkana. Girls who participated also reported a 50% increase in household decision-making since the start of the program. Engaging women in household decision making and local governance is vital to creating inclusive governance and economic systems. In Mali, Mercy Corps worked with 120 women leaders to build basic leadership skills, enhance understanding of local governance processes and develop advocacy skills. Following the 12 months of training, 38 of the women leaders ran for office in local elections and 14 were elected. In 2018, Mercy Corps impacted the lives of more than 6.9 million women and girls through opportunities to improve their education, health, leadership and livelihoods. https://www.mercycorps.org
Oxfam America
Oxfam is a global organization working to right the wrongs of poverty, hunger, and social injustice. Globally, Oxfam works with 22.1 million people in more than 90 countries to create lasting solutions to the injustice of poverty and hunger. Oxfam works to increase women’s access to and control over resources as part of a larger focus on gender justice, aiming to transform gender power relations and norms through campaigning, programming, advocacy, and research to facilitate women’s articulation of their own voice and agendas. For over 13 years, Oxfam has been working through its Savings for Change program to build resilience and increase women’s empowerment by providing basic financial services to women around the world, as well as training in business skills, agriculture, active citizenship and advocacy, and mobile banking. Saving for Change is as much about strengthening member’s voices as it is about increasing their financial inclusion. Oxfam believes that strengthening women’s agency and space is an essential precursor to achieving gender equality as well as political, social, economic, cultural and environmental security. https://www.oxfamamerica.org
Street Business School
Street Business School (SBS) provides entrepreneurial education and confidence to women living in poverty. On average, graduates triple their income, going from $1.35/day to $4.19/day. This change in income is life-altering for alumni and their families. With increased earnings, SBS graduates educate their children, provide healthcare, increase their family’s daily meals, and discover their influence. SBS sees dramatic shifts with graduates’ confidence, creating a stronger voice in their families and their communities. SBS has trained 46 other NGOs how to incorporate this program into their communities because its partners share the belief that when a women is economically strong, the holistic benefits to all are invaluable. https://www.streetbusinessschool.org
Upaya Social Ventures
Upaya Social Ventures creates dignified jobs for women living in extreme poverty by building scalable businesses with investment and consulting support. Of the nearly 12,000 jobs created by Upaya’s investment portfolio companies, half are held by women, most of whom are entering the workforce for the first time. This is no coincidence, since half of Upaya’s active portfolio is comprised of women-led social enterprises. Upaya places a strong emphasis on investing in women entrepreneurs, a population largely underfunded in comparison with their male counterparts. The organization believes the more it demonstrates women’s success in entrepreneurship, the more likely it will be to kick-off a chain reaction of women-led ventures, job creation for women, and growing prosperity overall. https://www.upayasv.org
A thoughtful model and a little bit of encouragement is sometimes all that is needed to empower women in potentially intimidating workspaces. Or at least for Fabiola, this was the case.
Fabiola worked at a vegetable greenhouse in Sonora in northern Mexico when the farm decided to become Fair Trade certified. Fabiola, one of thousands of workers, was elected to be a representative on her farm’s Fair Trade Committee. She was shy and hesitated to speak in front of others. As a part of the committee, she received training and learned how to negotiate and represent her fellow co-workers’ concerns.
Nathalie Marin-Gest, Fair Trade USA Senior Director of Produce & Floral, visited Fabiola’s farm a year after she was elected to the committee.
Fabiola had embraced her new role whole-heartedly. Marin-Gest said Fabiola was firing a construction manager who was not doing a good job and hosting meetings with thousands of workers with ease. She was emboldened by being on the committee and learning how the farm production process worked. She was advocating for workers and communicating with suppliers regularly.
“I’d never spoken up in public—I was terrified to,” she told Marin-Gest at the time. “I didn’t want to accept the nomination but now I feel proud of myself for being able to do this, and my kid told me, ‘Mom, good job. I’m proud of you,’ and it was the most amazing moment.”
Moments like these reveal just how much deeper than a label on a bag of coffee or sweatshirt Fair Trade USA’s work goes. When we hear “fair trade,” it’s easy to simply acknowledge that a label like that ensures ethical practices and fair business, but the actual work of Fair Trade USA is much more intricate and weighty than that.
Fair Trade USA helps develop sustainable supply chains by setting rigorous social and environmental standards that farms, factories and fisheries around the world are certified against by third-party certification bodies. To achieve Fair Trade certification, Fair Trade USA has developed detailed certification criteria for the different product categories, like the Agriculture Production Standard (APS), which is more than 100 pages long. These standards set basic principles in each workplace like eliminating workplace discrimination, requiring equal pay for equal work, as well as ensuring that workers make at least minimum wage or above. These standards also include criteria around maternity leave for women and ensure that employers cannot force women to take pregnancy tests before they are hired, which is a practice unfortunately common on many farms that do not want to take on the supposed burden of hiring a woman who will need to leave to give birth.
The certifications and audits are really just the beginning of the work Fair Trade does with its members. As Marin-Gest puts it, “we provide a platform for farms, factories, fisheries to be able to integrate social compliance into their own program to write a framework…essentially helping to tie compliance and operations back to the human, in particular.”
Besides the impact created from compliance with the Fair Trade Standards, when products are sold with the Fair Trade Certified™ seal, a few extra cents go back to the workers and small producers. These Fair Trade Community Development Funds are pooled and used collectively on projects that help meet the needs of those within the scope of the certificate. In order to manage the funds appropriately and represent all participants, the APS has an Empowerment module that requires the formation of a Fair Trade Committee. Fair Trade USA requires its partners to map their workforce and see who actually works for the company in order to ensure that the Fair Trade Committee is made up of a group of people that actually represents the workforce (number of men or women, migrants or locals, or those with disabilities, job type, etc.). The general assembly of small farmers or workers then elects the committee members. A needs assessment of all the small farmers or workers (on large farms) is conducted to direct the decisions on how to use the Fair Trade Community Development Funds. The Fair Trade Committee then develops projects based on the needs of the general assembly members, their families and communities. Projects focus on helping to solve community problems and make work more accessible, particularly for women.
In Ecuador, women working on a floral farm that was Fair Trade Certified began to get sick. The women were working six days a week, and on Sundays, their only day off, women would go into the river to wash their family’s clothes. The high-altitude river was getting contaminated, and women were having bone and respiratory problems.
After the Fair Trade Committee at the farm looked deeply at the root causes of why so many women were getting sick, they decided to use their Fair Trade Community Development Funds to create a laundromat, employing an attendant to do the laundry, on-site at their farm. Women can now bring their family’s laundry to work and leave at the end of the day with clean, folded laundry. Suddenly, women actually had a day to rest at the end of a long workweek and were much healthier. Marin-Gest said that small innovation led to some women finishing up school or starting their own businesses.
“Their lives have changed completely just from setting up a little laundromat program, because they dug deep and found out what was really happening; they were creative and found a solution that changed lives dramatically,” she said.
Farms, fisheries and factories that are Fair Trade Certified™ must continue to not only meet the certification standards but also continue to improve their workforce environments in order to keep their workers. Internationally, farmers have been experiencing labor shortages, and Marin-Gest said Fair Trade USA’s affiliates have actually seen just the opposite, due in part to the standards and good work environments those standards create for workers.
“People also care how they’re being treated and if they have a voice on that farm,” Marin-Gest said. “So what we’ve found with the Fair Trade program is that farms have gone from having extreme labor shortages to having waiting lists of workers who want to work there.”
This makes sense with a model that encourages workers to not only have better lives but also re-invest their Fair Trade Community Development Funds into programs that are good for the community. Marin-Gest pointed to examples like women creating their own sewing design shops or pig nurseries with the Community Development Funds, or building homes and communities near to farms, to eliminate commute stress or family separation. Fair Trade USA also provides financial literacy training, which really helps families plan their financial lives, as well.
Beyond fair, humane working conditions for workers around the world, Fair Trade USA is also helping empower women and their families to advocate for their rights and work to have more financially stable and secure lives in the future. Or as Marin-Gest puts it, looking at women like Fabiola and her child, “generations are getting impacted, as well.”
Abby Maxman was a long-time admirer of Oxfam America before she became its president and CEO in June 2017. Throughout her 30-year career in international aid and development, she has always been drawn to Oxfam’s underlying philosophy, “that systemic injustices keep people poor, and it’s not an accident,” says Maxman.
Maxman has dedicated her life’s work to fighting the injustice of poverty, but she didn’t always know this is how her career would unfold.
Maxman credits the Quaker school she attended as a child for exposing her to issues of social justice around the world. There, she was first confronted with shocking images from the 1984 famine in Ethiopia and institutionalized racism in apartheid South Africa. At the time, Nelson Mandela was still in prison and the HIV/AIDS epidemic was just beginning to hit the public consciousness.
Looking back, Maxman believes these events were seminal moments in her own awareness and connection with international issues. But even as she studied for a degree in political science and history, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do.
“But I knew I had this vague, probably uninformed, interest of wanting to make a difference in the world,” she says.
Then, one rejection changed the course of her life. Maxman’s heart was set on a research fellowship in Latin America after college. But when someone advised her not to count on only one thing, she half-heartedly applied for the Peace Corps, as well. She was devastated when she didn’t get the fellowship. However, the Peace Corps wanted her, and she was soon on her way to Lesotho as an agriculture and community development worker.
“Without a doubt, that was probably the best thing that ever happened to me, because it opened this world to me of international humanitarian relief and development, multilateralism, the UN architecture – everything just opened up to me in that learning journey,” she says.
In Lesotho, she witnessed apartheid first-hand, as well as the fortitude and resilience of women who regularly faced financial exploitation and led their households in the absence of men, most of whom had left for South Africa as laborers.
To this day, those experiences continue to inform her view that poverty is a result of human action, inaction, decisions and political choices. “Poverty is political,” she says. “It’s about politics and power.”
Oxfam America President Abby Maxman at the border wall separating the US and Mexico. Photo: Oxfam/Alyssa Eisenstein.
That’s why Oxfam’s three-prong approach to poverty and inequality is so compelling to her. “We help people build better futures for themselves; we save lives and alleviate suffering in disaster and humanitarian crises. But the real multiplier that takes impact to scale is policy advocacy.”
This is something that she has felt is “absolutely essential” as she’s navigated her lengthy career – from the Peace Corps to the World Food Programme, to the German development agency GTZ (now GIZ), to 20 years at CARE, where she eventually became the deputy secretary general of CARE International.
Now at Oxfam America, she plans to continue pushing for policy solutions to systemic issues, particularly around gender justice.
“I have seen in my career and all my learnings have shown this very simple thing: that when women and girls at the community-level have voice and choice about how decisions are made – at the household level, at the community level, at the local political level – families and communities are healthier and wealthier, period.”
Maxman has worked with many women’s economic empowerment programs, including Oxfam’s village savings groups program, Savings for Change. She’s witnessed how savings not only allows women to have more say in the health and education of their families, but also creates social cohesion, gives them a place to convene for support and community, opens up more economic opportunities,, and provides them the means to participate in socially important things, like funerals.
“The economic empowerment that can contribute to social and political participation has an exponential effect on households and communities,” says Maxman. “I’ve seen it be a very powerful changemaker in many places around the world.”
That includes the U.S., where Maxman says Oxfam America’s domestic program will continue to advocate for social change on issues of women’s rights, human rights, worker rights, and social justice for excluded and marginalized populations. It’s not just because injustice and poverty are wrong regardless of whether they’re in a developing or developed country, but also because what happens in the U.S. affects the rest of the world.
“The U.S. has a disproportionate influence on the world – for good and for bad,” she says. “Everything that happens in these United States affects global poverty, social justice, good governance, the rule of law, institutions – everything.”
Maxman is also committed to making sure Oxfam is a better model of equity in the workplace and on the frontlines of their work around the world.
“Gender justice has always been core to Oxfam, and yet we know we’re not always modeling that at the levels we want to,” she says. “I’m excited to see the transformative power of creating more equal societies and the power of bringing women’s voice and choice into what we do and how we do it.”
Please welcome our newest Global Washington members. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with their work and consider opportunities for support and collaboration!
Bloodworks Northwest
Bloodworks Northwest is an independent, non-profit organization harnessing donor gifts to provide a safe, lifesaving blood supply to more than 90 Northwest hospitals. Its mission is to save lives through research, innovation, education and excellence in blood, medical and laboratory services in partnership with its community. Bloodworksnw.org
Stamford, Conn. – March 20, 2019 – Americares is preparing emergency shipments of medicine and relief supplies to help families affected by Tropical Cyclone Idai in Mozambique. The deadly storm lashed the city of Beira in central Mozambique Thursday evening before barreling inland toward Zimbabwe and Malawi.
Abby Maxman was a long-time admirer of Oxfam America before she became its president and CEO in June 2017. Throughout her 30-year career in international aid and development, she has always been drawn to Oxfam’s underlying philosophy, “that systemic injustices keep people poor, and it’s not an accident,” says Maxman.