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This month, 600 women gathered under a huge blue-and-yellow-striped tent in Baripada, a small city in Odisha, a state in India’s east. They were among India’s most neglected people. Widowed, abandoned or divorced, many had ended up living like servants in the households of their fathers, brothers or in-laws.
Click here to read the full story in The New York Times.
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There are 748 million people worldwide who do not have access to safe drinking water, and 2.5 billion who lack access to improved sanitation. Several non-profits and for-profits in Washington state are partnering to increase access to clean water and therefore improve lives globally. These NGOs and companies have contributed to over 2 billion people gaining access to improved drinking water since 1990, and they will continue efforts to help the world reach Sustainable Development Goal 6 by 2030 — ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
Global Washington member FSG understands the power of NGO/Business partnerships. Below is an excerpt from a blog titled Untapped Potential written by Arani Kajenthira Grindle, Senior Consultant at FSG, that touches on opportunities around shared value and water.
In conducting our work, we have come to recognize that companies have ample opportunity to influence water access and availability in their relative operational spheres, addressing a clear social challenge in a manner that allows for business returns across all three levels of shared value creation. Continue Reading
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Welcome to the March 2016 issue of the Global Washington newsletter.
Water is the lifeblood of thriving communities, essential to health and well-being, and critical to economic development, gender equity and access to education. Without clean water and sanitation, individuals and communities lack resilience against natural and man-made threats. For example, Ethiopia is currently facing one of the worst droughts in decades with nearly 6 million people needing water and sanitation services. Some experts even predict that future wars will be waged due to a lack of access to clean water.
The good news is that Washington state is leading the way to increase access to clean water globally. Companies such as Global Good, MSR and PotaVida are providing cutting edge technologies and non-profits such as Water1st, Splash, World Concern and World Vision are getting clean water to the people who need it most. We’ll be shining a spotlight on non-profit and business partnerships at our Clean Water Allies event on March 29. I hope you can join us.
Photo Credit: Gavin Gough/Splash
We also want to celebrate all of the Global Washington members working on solutions to our world’s most pressing challenges. We hope you will join us in Seattle on May 12 for a Spring Member Celebration. We look forward to honoring the dedication and success of our region’s global development leaders, and I encourage you to come party with us and be a part of this dedicated community that is impacting lives around the world.
Kristen Dailey
Executive Director
Does your organization have anything planned for World Water Day next week? If so, please tell us your organization and describe your event!
By Amanda Pain
Photo Credit: Adara Development
Imagine waking up in the morning and having no water. No water to drink, to brush your teeth, to make breakfast, or even to wash. Instead, the nearest water source is three to four miles away and, if you’re a woman, your family is counting on you to fetch the day’s water. It takes six hours round trip daily to carry water as heavy as 70 pounds, and this keeps you in a perpetual cycle of poverty since you are unable to attend school or gain employment. And your reward for this hard work is water that is filthy, and often makes your family sick.
Water is at the core of sustainable development, touching on social, economic and environmental issues. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 focuses on the entire water cycle including management of water, wastewater and ecosystem resources, and expands upon Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7 which, prior to 2015, promoted safe drinking water and sanitation. While over 2 billion people gained access to improved drinking water through piped supplies and protected wells since 1990, there are still approximately 748 million people who do not have access to safe drinking water, and some 2.5 billion people who lack access to improved sanitation.
As the global economy continues growing, so does the demand for water as well as the amount of pollutants entering potable water sources. Demand for water is projected to rise 55 percent globally, primarily due to manufacturing, thermal electricity and domestic use. More water will also be needed to meet the growing demands for food, as agriculture will need to produce 60 percent more food globally (100 percent more in developing countries) to feed the population.
Contamination is an issue that runs parallel to scarcity. The bacteria and parasites in water can lead to communicable diseases such as diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid and guinea worm infection. Nearly 2.5 billion people practice open defecation near water sources. Even in urban areas, over 2 billion people use toilets that drain raw sewage into open drains or surface waters. Unsafe water and sanitation accounts for 94 percent of deaths due to diarrhea, and kills approximately 180,000 children under the age of five each year. Another 160 million children suffer from chronic malnutrition and stunting, often linked to unsafe water. And illness from dirty water can cause absence from school and work, in turn slowing economic growth.
This complex issue certainly allows for much opportunity. So what can be done? SDG 6 sets six targets to be met by 2030, including making safe drinking water for all, creating adequate sanitation (especially for women), minimizing water pollution, increasing water-use efficiency, implementing more effective water resource management and protecting and restoring water-related ecosystems (i.e. rivers, wetlands and aquifers). Accomplishing these goals require the coordination and cooperation of governments, as well as for-profits and non-profits worldwide.
Washington state has a number of organizations working on this critical global development issue. Below are descriptions of GlobalWA members who are currently leading water programs and projects throughout the world. Learn more about these members and others on GlobalWA’s interactive map.
Adara Development: In the Himalayan District of Humla, Nepal where access to clean water is scarce, Adara helps villagers build clean drinking water systems. These systems pipe spring water into the villages, eliminating the need for villagers to travel long distances to get water and ensuring access to safe water sources. In Uganda, Adara supports a community-based healthcare program that teaches 800,000 in the Nakaseke district about the SODIS (or solar disinfectant) method. Using this method, water can be disinfected and made drinkable in six hours using the rays of the sun and clear PET bottles filled with water. This helps prevent diarrhea which is one of the most common causes of death among people in developing countries. www.adaragroup.org
Bainbridge Ometepe Sister Island Association – For 30 years, BOSIA has partnered with Ometepe Island in Nicaragua to build water systems and improve schools, libraries, coffee production, health care and cultural exchange. Through community driven projects, the Association focuses on building relationships and friendships to help maintain sustainable development in Ometepe. http://bainbridgeometepe.org/
Esperanza International Foundation – Working in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Esperanza International Foundation serves women, the material poor and the socially marginalized. The Foundation’s water projects allow local churches to purchase professional-grade water filtration systems with Esperanza loan capital, which allows churches to then sell clean drinking water at affordable prices to local community members. These churches then use the profits of their water project to repay their loan, as well as invest in strengthening their communities. New access to clean water has played a major role in reducing the number of water borne illnesses and gastrointestinal problems these communities face, providing them with better overall health. http://www.esperanza.org/
Etta Projects – Etta Projects collaborates with communities, creating sustainable solutions to improve health, sanitation and clean water. The organization’s safe water and sanitation projects include building water distribution systems in rural communities, building water purification systems in per-urban communities using filtration, as well as building dry composting latrines and grey water filtration systems. Etta Projects also offers hygiene, sanitation and disease prevention training and education, working with locally appointed villagers to become health, sanitation and rights promoters. http://ettaprojects.org/
MSR Global Health – For 45+ years, Mountain Safety Research (MSR) has been committed to the precision engineering and manufacturing of outdoor gear for some of the most remote settings on earth. MSR Global Health was born out of the realization that their expertise in developing technologies and products that keep backcountry enthusiasts safe in the outdoors can be adapted to meet the most basic human needs of water, food and shelter for people living in low resource communities. Utilizing their world class water research lab, the MSR Global Health team has developed the SE200 Community Chlorine Maker that converts water and salt to chlorine using electricity, enabling the user to treat up to 200 L of drinking water in about 5 minutes. Like most of MSR’s products, the chlorine maker is manufactured in Seattle, WA. http://msrglobalhealth.com
Orphans to Ambassadors – Orphans to Ambassadors enhances infrastructure of orphanages by using sustainable technologies that improve their self-sufficiency. Working in over 10 countries, one of organization’s programs addresses the critical issue of water collection by installing high-capacity rain water catchment systems to collect and store rainwater during the rainy seasons. http://www.orphanstoambassadors.org/
PotaVida – PotaVida enables aid organizations to make better decisions by collecting accurate data from the field in real time and distilling it into actionable insights. To realize this, PotaVida creates technical solutions that work, are simple to use, and result in dramatic benefit to people in need. The company’s first product, the Smart Solar Purifier, disinfects water using just sunlight for household use in disaster relief and refugee contexts. In addition to providing safe drinking water at a dramatically lower cost, every Smart Solar Purifier records its own usage data. This data is downloaded to mobile devices to provide instantaneous feedback in the field, and is also synced in the cloud, analyzed at the program level, and sent to decision makers. http://potavida.com/
Splash – Splash is a nonprofit organization that cleans water for kids living in urban poverty. Splash implements water, sanitation and hygiene programs in child-serving institutions (like schools) to keep vulnerable kids healthy. Splash does this by installing high-quality water filtration systems and durable drinking and handwashing stations, renovating toilets to make them safe and clean, and establishing hygiene clubs that teach kids about personal hygiene. By leveraging local institutions, infrastructure and intelligence, Splash reduces costs and builds local partnerships to produce solutions that last. http://splash.org/
The Living Earth Institute – The Living Health Institute (LEI) works to empower communities to protect their health and environment through sustainable water use, with the primary goals of ensuring clean water supply and improved sanitation. LEI adapts water projects to the needs of the community with projects ranging from building family composting toilets and community water wells in Nepal, to pursuing earthquake rebuild partnerships. LEI has also created drinking water, rainwater catchment and hand washing stations in developing communities in other parts of the world. http://living-earth.org/
Water1st International – Water1st prides itself on funding sustainable water projects that involve local communities, local women, as well as a consistent funding stream. Since it’s founding in 2005, Water1st has provided clean water to over 140,000 people. While its projects focus on providing easy access to clean water, the organization also ensures that projects integrate toilets and hygiene education. Water 1st’s success centers on robust program evaluation of each of its funded projects to ensure that deliverables are effective and community needs are met. http://water1st.org/
World Concern – World Concern is a Christian global relief and development organization. With a 60-year history, World Concern reaches communities in challenging and hard-to-reach places with sustainable, long-term development programs. In addition to other areas of expertise, World Concern provides access to safe drinking water, improved sanitation and hygiene training to improve health and save lives in the communities they serve. http://worldconcern.org/
World Vision: World Vision is the leading NGO provider of clean drinking water, reaching one new person every 30 seconds. Focusing on the rural, ultra-poor, combining access to clean water with sanitation and hygiene interventions and engaging communities in sustainability efforts, World Vision and their partners are committed to expanding their reach to one new person every 10 seconds with clean water and sanitation by 2020. With the use of right-sized equipment, appropriate water sources, manual drilling, mechanized wells with solar pumps and over 500 WASH professionals who live and work in the communities where they lead efforts, nearly 80 percent of World Vision wells continue to function at a high level after 20 years. http://www.worldvision.org/our-impact/clean-water
By Amanda Pain
Photo Credit: Taylor Jashinsky/World Concern. Although there is water available in places like Myanmar, it’s often unsafe to drink. World Concern provides ways for families to have clean, safe drinking water.
Successful global development rarely includes one-size-fits-all solutions, and working in clean water and sanitation is no exception. People rebuilding their communities after a disaster strikes may find themselves surrounded by water, with none of it being safe to drink. Even those who have access to purifiers or chlorine tablets may not understand how to use them properly, finding themselves constantly ill. Additionally, in some communities, improved hygiene practices may go against cultural norms and people may not see value in changing their behavior.
World Concern, a Christian global relief and development agency with over 60 years of experience assisting the most impoverished communities in the world, understands that community-led and community need-based interventions are at the core of sustainable development. Chris Sheach, Deputy Director of Disaster Response for World Concern, believes his organization’s number one strength is that its projects are directly based on needs identified by each community.
“World Concern has an integrated development approach,” said Sheach. “We don’t choose a community for a water project, but rather choose water with the communities we are working in.”
Photo Credit: Edwin Kuria/World Concern. In drought-prone places like northern Somalia, World Concern equips communities to capture rainwater for household use.
Successful clean water and sanitation projects must begin with understanding the local community members and what they value. “Program outcomes are tied to value within a community,” said Sheach. For example, in some communities, once a mother understands that clean water and sanitation can help her children live longer, or if a family understands that clean and water and sanitation means less missed work and school days, they are willing to change their behavior.
World Concern currently leads clean water and sanitation projects in Kenya, Somalia, Chad, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Laos and Haiti, and water projects are designed with input and investment from local community members. In Somalia for example, World Concern helped build rainwater catchment systems, and in Haiti helped put a cap on a natural spring to ensure water runoff was free of contaminants and drinkable. World Concern also builds wells and latrines and provides education on how to maintain latrines and practice proper hygiene.
World Concern recently announced a collaboration with PotaVida, a Seattle-based company, and the two will be distributing and testing PotaVida’s Smart Solar Purifier in Haiti. Sheach said the purifier is designed for people living in transit, and Haiti was chosen as a pilot for the $150K grant awarded by the Washington Global Health Alliance (WGHA) because many Haitians have been displaced after being deported from the bordering Dominican Republic.
Photo Credit: Martha Snowbarger/World Concern. In Haiti, World Concern helps communities access permanent water points. The Smart Solar Purifier will help ensure displaced families in Haiti also have safe drinking water.
PotaVida’s Smart Solar Purifier is a 10-liter hydration reservoir with an integrated UV dose sensor, enabling it to disinfect water using sunlight. The Smart Solar Purifier is easy to use, starting at the press of a button and indicating completion with a green light. It is reusable for up to a year, and does not rely upon replacement chemicals, freeing World Concern from supply chain management. What is truly innovative, and one of the reasons World Concern is using the Smart Solar Purifier, is that every unit records usage data. The usage data can then be easily collected using an Android phone, tagged with a GPS location, synced to a database in the cloud, and then accessed from anywhere. Providing these purifiers to people in a transitory situation will alleviate one burden as they work to rebuild their lives, said Sheach.
“For us, what will be a success (of this pilot) is if we are able to more accurately determine people’s water usage,” explained Sheach. With the data collected from the purifiers, World Concern will gain knowledge about the communities it works in, allowing the organization to target water interventions to individuals who need them most.
Sheach stressed the value of the tight-knit global development community in Washington state, saying the collaboration with PotaVida would not have happened if both World Concern and PotaVida were not located in Seattle. “The community is very connected here,” said Sheach. He believes that organizations like Global Washington and WGHA support, promote, and strengthen partnerships between NGOs, companies and academia within the state, and he’s grateful for that.
“The lesson I’ve learned is when you get together and chat with good people, with smart people, things happen,” said Sheach. “You can’t pre-bake the outcome. (This grant) is a large financial win, and it came out of patience and collaboration.”
By Amanda Pain
If there was a recipe of life experiences that would make a respected leader in the clean water and sanitation field, it might look something like this: being raised in Southern Arizona, vacationing in Mexico as a young girl and watching girls your age collect and carry water, receiving degrees in civil and environmental engineering, and founding two non-profits that fund water projects worldwide. These life experiences belong to Marla Smith-Nilson, Founder and Executive Director of Water1st International, and recipient of the 2015 World Citizen Award.
Smith-Nilson believes you can’t grow up in a desert without understanding the importance of water. But it wasn’t until she watched women and girls carry water in Mexico, and then traveled through Egypt and Turkey as a University of Arizona Flinn Scholar, that she truly discovered her passion. “I saw people carrying water and I just said ‘this is it, I have to figure this out,’” Smith-Nilson explained.
Smith-Nilson enjoyed studying civil engineering as an undergraduate and environmental engineering as a graduate student and thinks this education has been helpful in providing both her and her organizations with credibility. She believes her engineering training taught her how to solve problems most effectively, as well as how to recognize the limits of her expertise.
“I discovered early on in my path to this career that if I wanted to help poor people have permanent sustainable access to water, it had to be through support of local organizations,” Smith-Nilson said.
In 1990, while attending graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Smith Nilson co-founded WaterPartners International (today called Water.org). Her initial goal was to fund one organization in Honduras — COCEPRADIL (Central Committee for Water and Comprehensive Development Projects in Lempira). COCEPRADIL was implementing well-constructed pipe water systems and toilets in rural communities, and was doing everything right in Smith-Nilson’s view. Water1st continues to fund COCEPRADIL today.
“I guess, in the beginning, I did not think of it as starting a non-profit,” said Smith-Nilson. “I just wanted to support this group that was doing really good work.” She said, however, she discovered early on that incorporating her organization as a non-profit would help raise more money.
In 2005, Smith-Nilson decided to leave WaterPartners and start Water1st International, based in Seattle. She made the decision to leave WaterPartners because the organization had moved away from grassroots funding. Large funders, such as USAID and the World Bank, had restrictions that dictated where the organization could work, and whom it could work with, explained Smith-Nilson.
“I was feeling pretty uncomfortable with the funds we were raising and the direction it was taking us,” Smith-Nilson said. “I wanted to tell donors that money was going to projects that would last a lifetime, and I was not feeling confident that was the case.” With Water1st, she could set project standards to align with best practice. Smith-Nilson enjoyed working with grassroots funders, not only because of fewer funding restrictions, but also because she could directly connect individual donors with people doing good work.
“The beauty of starting Water1st was to say ‘these are our standards, and we won’t let go of them ever,’” explained Smith-Nilson. “I feel really good that 11 years later we have maintained the same ideals and standards.” Water1st operates primarily on individual donations, and it partners long-term with local organizations abroad. Smith-Nilson believes when an organization constantly worries about their next funding source, it often makes project success difficult. She explained that, in the water and sanitation sector, 35 to 50 percent of all projects fail in the first two to five years, and this failure rate is unchanged since the late 1980s.
Smith-Nilson said sustainable funding from unrestrictive sources has allowed Water1st to work with the same local organizations over the past 11 years. These relationships help organizations make long-term plans, incorporate evaluation into its projects, and retain valuable staff. Smith-Nilson believes, through building sustainable relationships with donors, local organizations vastly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their projects. Since 2005, Water1st has completed 1,562 water projects – and not one has failed.
Smith-Nilson thinks restrictive funding is a major issue facing the clean water and sanitation sector, and thinks there needs to be more standards for organizations working on water projects. She believes organizations should be rated, and donors should only fund organizations with successful ratings. “Donors should stop funding organizations with a history of failed projects, and non-profits need to start saying no to funding restrictions that hinder a project’s success.”
Smith-Nilson has found her calling in life, and is truly happy with her work and the success of Water1st. “I can’t do anything else. I cannot get this excited about anything else. This is it.”
Please welcome our newest Global Washington members. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with their work and consider opportunities for support and collaboration!
All As One
All As One saves the lives of orphaned and abandoned children in Freetown, Sierra Leone. In a nation where thousands of children are left to survive on their own, All As One is a vibrant Children’s Center that feeds, educates and cares for over 100 children every day. allasone.org
Global Leadership Forum (GLF)
GLF is a leadership and development program for executive directors and senior staff of U.S.-based global non-profit (NGO), philanthropic and other organizations. The program consists of three retreats over three seasons, with monthly meetings in between. glfglobal.com/
OutRight Action International
OutRight Action International is a leading international human rights organization dedicated to improving the lives of people who experience discrimination or abuse on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity or expression. OutRight Action International strengthens the capacity of the LGBT human rights movement worldwide to effectively conduct documentation of LGBT human rights violations and engages in human rights advocacy with partners around the globe. outrightinternational.org/
PotaVida
PotaVida enables aid organizations to make better decisions by collecting accurate data from the field in real time and distilling it into actionable insights. Creating technical solutions that work, are simple to use, and result in dramatic benefit to people in need, the company’s first product, the Smart Solar Purifier, disinfects water using just sunlight for household use in disaster relief and refugee contexts. In addition to providing safe drinking water at a dramatically lower cost, every Smart Solar Purifier records its own usage data. This data is downloaded to mobile devices to provide instantaneous feedback in the field, and is also synced in the cloud, analyzed at the program level, and sent to decision makers. potavida.com
The Tai Initiative
The Tai Initiative builds communication capacity at the sub-national level of the U.S.-China relationship by nurturing a network of solid personal relationships among professionals and institutions upon which the national relationship can build for achieving understanding and trust. taiinitiative.org
Mar 18: Landesa // 10th Annual Seed the Change Luncheon
Mar 22: Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce // Young Professionals Network
Mar 31: Trade Development Alliance // Japan’s Importance in the Future of Asia
Mar 31 – May 31: OneWorld Now! // 50k for 50 Kids Campaign
Apr 18 – 20: InterAction // Forum 2016
Chief Operating Officer – Resource Media
President – VillageReach
Program Assistant – Ashesi University Foundation
For more jobs and resources, visit https://globalwa.org/resources/careers-in-development/
March 22: Learn Tableau Software and Get Started With Your Own Data
March 24: Networking Happy Hour
March 29: Clean Water Allies: NGO and Business Partnerships for Good
March 31: Bolstering National and Global Resilience in the Face of 21st Century Mayhem
April 28: Executive Director Roundtable
May 12: Spring Member Celebration
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By Sydney Perlotto, Awamaki
As another International Women’s Day approaches, we at Awamaki asked ourselves: What makes International Women’s Day worth celebrating? As a non-profit working for rural women’s empowerment in Peru with a staff made up of Peruvian and international women, sometimes it feels like every day is International Women’s Day. Continue Reading
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“Three thousand five hundred more girls are in school in a wonderful building because of dedicated people in Seattle,” says the executive director of Sahar.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Ginna Brelsford
What do you do? I’m the executive director of Sahar, an international nonprofit [based in Seattle] that provides access to education for girls and women in Afghanistan.
Click here to read the full story in The Seattle Times.
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Global Washington member World Bicycle Relief was recognized by Fast Company when it announced its annual ranking of the world’s 50 Most Innovative Companies for 2016, honoring leading enterprises and rising newcomers that exemplify the best in nimble business and impactful innovation. Joining global nonprofit World Bicycle Relief in The World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Africa are M-PESA, TotoHealth, Samsung Electronics, African Leadership University and more.
In the developing world, distance prevents children from attending school, the sick from receiving care, and entrepreneurs from earning enough to feed their families. World Bicycle Relief builds and distributes specially designed, locally assembled, rugged bicycles to students, healthcare workers, and entrepreneurs through study-to-own and work-to-own programs. World Bicycle Relief mobilizes individuals through The Power of Bicycles so they can overcome barriers and change their lives. Continue Reading
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By Krista Schilling, International Services Program Manager, NW Region, American Red Cross
It’s safe to say that the world we live in today is full of global collaboration and innovative communication. This is especially relevant given that every day we are influenced by images of humanity (or crimes against humanity) that encourage us to reflect on how we, as individuals, fit into the greater context of society. It prompts us as global citizens to seek out how we can participate as humanitarians and connect in a cross-cultural context, while having a broader impact to affect positive change from our home here in the Pacific Northwest. Continue Reading
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Welcome to the February 2016 issue of the Global Washington newsletter.
As we approach International Women’s Day on March 8, we turn our attention to the issue of women’s empowerment and its undeniable link to sustained development. Gender inequality in its many forms does not impact women alone, rather it affects families, communities and entire societies. The Sustainable Development Goals are only achievable if we empower women globally, something that will be top of mind next month at United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York when the UN gathers representatives of Member States with NGOs from around the world for the sixtieth session of the Commission on the Status of Women.
Photos: Global Partnerships
Many Global Washington members work tirelessly to improve women’s lives, and we’re highlighting a number of them in the articles below. I hope you will read on to learn about their current projects, success stories and plans for the future. These organizations are not only allowing women to realize their full potential, they are helping to create brighter futures for families everywhere.
Kristen Dailey
Executive Director
Does your organization have anything planned for International Women’s Day this year? If so, tell us who you are and what you have planned!
By Tara Cookson
“There is no tool more effective for development than the empowerment of women.” – Kofi Anan
This quote is often cited in development circles, but what does it actually take to achieve women’s empowerment? A clear definition of what empowerment looks like can help guide work that’s both high-impact and sustainable.
Photo: One By One
Defining Empowerment
Empowerment emerged as a fairly radical concept in development practice in the 1980s with the idea that there needed to be a transformation in the systems that assign women less power than men. Gender equity wouldn’t be achieved through women’s economic independence alone, many believed. Instead, there needed to be an overhaul of the political, economic, legal and social institutions and practices that drive inequality.
Take the case of Janina. Abandoned by her husband and now a single mother of four, Janina lives in the rugged Andean highlands. The nearest health clinic is three hours away by foot, and is often closed due to staff shortages. Janina is illiterate which makes it difficult to access public services, use the bank, and help her children with schoolwork. She lives with her children and brother, who is dependent upon her for care, on a small plot of arable land owned by her husband’s father. While her eldest children are in school, Janina secures her toddler to her back and tends to her crops, a task which in recent years has become more difficult due to persistent water shortages. If her father-in-law were to decide to sell the land, Janina’s future would be uncertain. While disempowerment takes many forms in Janina’s life, her case is far from unique.
Empowerment Today
Women’s empowerment and its link to sustainable development will be the guiding theme of the 60th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) taking place at the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York next month. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are only achievable if we make a “quantum leap” in women’s economic empowerment, according to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The CSW will host a first-of-its-kind high-level panel focusing specifically on women’s economic empowerment with the goal of providing thought leadership and mobilizing public and private actors to take concrete steps towards removing barriers to women’s economic participation.
The lasting impact of these meetings will largely depend on how empowerment is collectively defined, and how well stakeholders’ respective interventions are woven together as parts of a larger, transformative project.
Let’s return to the case of Janina. If economic empowerment is narrowly defined as simply earning an income, Janina cannot thrive. Cash alone won’t ensure that her health clinic will be open, that her children will receive a quality education, or that she’ll have access to clean water and electricity. Rather, Janina’s story portrays how diverse initiatives can play various roles in increasing women’s empowerment.
Future Directions for Empowerment
A transformative approach to women’s empowerment might look like a piece of cloth, with vertical interventions and horizontal, systems-level efforts woven tightly together. For example, access to safe and affordable family planning tools empower women and their partners to space births according to what they consider appropriate. Likewise, rural women gaining legal access to land provides food security and social status. Basic services like transportation allow women to access markets, and the availability of clean and affordable energy sources saves money and safeguards women’s health. Women’s ability to access financial services also depends on basic literacy – educating girls lays the foundation for future economic empowerment.
A number of Global Washington members work tirelessly to improve the lives of women, allowing them to look toward a brighter future for themselves and their families. Below are descriptions of just a few of these organizations, highlighting current projects. Learn more about these members and others on GlobalWA’s interactive map.
ACT for Congo: ACT for Congo empowers Congolese communities by providing critical support to local Congolese organizations that address the environment, education and health. They do not provide aid in the typical way. Instead, they facilitate. They connect their partners with resources and opportunities that would not be available to them if they did not have a U.S. partner advocating for them. ACT for Congo’s founding partner targets single teen and abandoned mothers in an integrated approach which includes disease prevention, vocational training, peer education and ongoing community support. www.actforcongo.org
Awamaki: Awamaki helps women’s associations in rural Peru start and run their own businesses selling artisan products. Volunteers teach product development, business and technical skills. They also help measure impact, collect stories and guide tourists to visit the artisan in their communities. Awamaki offers Peruvian women access to global markets and an improved quality of life in order to create sustainable development in their communities. www.awamaki.org
Bo M. Karlsson Foundation: Bo M. Karlsson Foundation (BMKF) empowers underprivileged women in Nepal through higher education. Since 2004, BMKF has awarded scholarships to 45 women students representing some of country’s most disadvantaged groups, including caste and ethnic minorities and women with disabilities. Several BMKF alumni rank among the first women in Nepal to work in their fields, including credit union manager Bhim Kumari ’14, electronics engineer Sarita Sharma ’14, medical doctor Sharada Chhetry ’13 and renewable energy expert Grishma Manandha ’11. www.bomkarlsson.com
Days for Girls International: Days for Girls International provides quality feminine hygiene products for girls by assembling and distributing feminine hygiene kits to areas in need. Girls around the world suffer indignities, infections and exploitation trying to stay in school without proper equipment for their menstrual needs. Days for Girls International works to ensure that every girl is safe and dignified with access to the proper information and supplies to stay healthy. www.daysforgirls.org
Global Partnerships: Global Partnerships (GP) is a nonprofit impact investor whose mission is to expand opportunity for people living in poverty. GP partners with organizations in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa and helps them scale their work to reach millions of people living in poverty – the majority of whom are women. In the last 20 years, GP had helped 85 organizations deliver business loans to women entrepreneurs, essential medicines and health screenings to underserved women, solar lights to families living without electricity, and access to markets, technical assistance and financing to rural women farmers. www.globalpartnerships.org
Landesa: Landesa champions women’s land rights as a vital tool to address some of our world’s most persistent development challenges. Women with stronger rights to land experience increased participation in household decision making, which has a profound ripple effect on household nutrition, health, educational gains for children, and access to credit. Through innovative programs in Asia and Africa and the advocacy efforts of the Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights, Landesa works to ensure that rural women have access to a transformative resource — secure rights to land. www.landesa.org
One By One: One By One partners with communities in Africa to provide life-transforming treatment for women and girls suffering with obstetric fistula, a devastating childbirth injury that causes uncontrollable leaking of urine and/or feces. Local teams carry out intensive rural outreach to educate about fistula and find women suffering in isolation. One By One covers the full cost of holistic treatment that restores a woman’s dignity and allows her to return to a productive life. One By One also works with communities to increase access to safe childbirth for all women. www.fightfistula.org
Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands (PPGNHI): Since 2001, PPGNHI’s Global Programs have improved the quality of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services and education in Cameroon, the Dominican Republic (the DR), Ecuador, Laos, Nepal and Vietnam. Partneing with NGOs in the global south to positively impact the lives of women and families, PPGNHI currently focuses on improving youth SRH in the DR and Vietnam where the majority of clients are girls. Overall goals of PPGNHI’s global efforts include increasing access to family planning and other SRH services, empowering young people through education about SRH and rights, and reducing the incidence of unsafe abortion and its consequences. https://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-great-northwest-hawaiian-islands/international-programs
Spreeha Foundation: Spreeha strives to break the cycle of poverty for underprivileged people. Operating in the urban slums of Bangladesh, Spreeha focuses heavily on women’s health and empowerment. The young women leadership program caters to girls age 8 – 14, educating them about their rights and potential along with providing guidance and extracurricular skills training. The women empowerment and placement program provides professional and technical training to women age 15 – 45, and arranges for job placement once complete. Spreeha healthcare programs offer maternal care and family planning services, on top of wide-ranging medical support to its beneficiaries. www.spreeha.org
Thriive: Thriive provides pay-it-forward loans to ambitious entrepreneurs in developing countries (over half are women) to create jobs and strengthen vulnerable communities. Entrepreneurs repay this ThriiveCapital not in cash or profit, but by donating an equivalent value of staple products and job training to the poorest people in struggling communities. By paying their loans forward, Thriive entrepreneurs are inspiring new cultures of social responsibility and making vulnerable global communities more resilient and self-sufficient. Through providing women entrepreneurs with the affordable capital they need to expand their small businesses, Thriive helps lift more women out of poverty and builds shared prosperity worldwide. www.thriive.org
By Theresa Norris
She went to bed alone, the night made even darker by her grief and fear. Grief from the death of her husband and fear from the uncertainty and hardship she faced as a widow with three small children. As she listened to the soft, steady breathing of her sleeping children, Julietah prayed to God to help her find a way to feed them for another day.
Julietah’s foremost concern, like mothers worldwide, was for her children. Mothers in rural Kenya and around the world come in a variety of forms; they are wives, mothers, widows, aunties, grandmothers, older sisters and caring women in the community. They are women who work and sacrifice for not only their own children, but also for others’ children. If you want to help children and families, help a mother.
Julietah is one of these mothers. She is a widow with 12 children now under her care. Shortly after her husband died, her brothers-in-law and their wives also died and all of their children came to live with her in the small mud/brick home that she shared with her three children. Julietah was consumed with worry for how she would provide for all the children. “I worry every day (about) what I’ll feed these children, and I worry that I don’t have water for them to drink or to use to wash so they can go to school,” she said. Then one day on her daily search for water, Julietah met Dorcas and things began to change.
Dorcas was the leader of the newest women’s group started by Women’s Enterprises International (WEI) in Julietah’s home area of eastern Kenya. WEI empowers women to work together to improve the lives of their families and communities by facilitating the formation and training of women’s groups in rural Kenya. WEI provides grants that match the groups’ heard-earned savings to extend the impact of group projects in areas such as water, food security, solar power and education for orphans. WEI works to develop leaders and improve the quality of life for thousands in the region. And they know that when women work together, they can do amazing things.
Dorcas, a widow herself, was moved by Julietah’s situation and invited her to join the WEI group of women who were working together to earn and save money to get clean water at each woman’s home. They, like Julietah, desperately needed water for drinking and cleaning. More importantly, they needed water to cook the dry maize and beans that are the staple food in the area.
Julietah joined the group and found herself surrounded by caring, supportive women who helped her carry her burden and learn new ways to earn income and save. When they could, the group also helped Julietah with school fees for her 12 children. After completing the first round of saving for their water project, the group had to decide who would receive the first 10,000-liter water tank. Continuing the WEI practice of distributing tanks to women with the greatest need, the group chose Julietah. They also selected her to receive one of the 15 concrete water tank bases that were constructed by a U.S. work team in August 2015.
Julietah now has a giant 10,000-liter water tank installed in a solid concrete base and connected by a series of pipes and gutters to the roof of her home. After the first big rain, her tank was full of clean, fresh rain water that was harvested from her roof. Now that she has her own tank, her contributions to the group’s savings will be combined with funds from WEI in the U.S. to help other women in the group receive the blessing of clean water right outside their own front doors.
While Julietah’s responsibilities are still great, she no longer bears them alone. As a member of a WEI women’s group, she is working together with other mothers to improve the lives of their children and families. Julietah is the reason that WEI invests in women. By helping a mother, WEI empowers her to help everyone she touches.
By Sara Atalla
“Don’t forget us! Please, don’t forget us,” they pleaded as the car sped away en route to the airport. On that day in 1996, Ndudi Chuku was departing her Nigerian village for the United States — a mere 10 months after being married — leaving behind a husband, family and friends. Their pleas gave Chuku a feeling that she’ll never forget and that both haunts and inspires her to this day. “It motivates me daily as I continue to look for resources to help those I left behind.”
After seven years and 11 visa denials, Chuku’s husband George joined her in the U.S. Together they established Mission Africa in 2006 with a mandate to provide services that will have a positive, significant and lasting impact on the lives of the African people. The Auburn, Washington-based organization provides support in three core areas: education, health care and poverty alleviation. As Executive Director, Chuku uses the motivation that has stayed with her since first leaving home as she works in not only remote villages of Nigeria but also Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Gambia. But Chuku’s dream of becoming a mobilizer and unifier began long before Mission Africa’s inception.
Though she witnessed extreme poverty, educational barriers, inhumane treatment and civil war growing up, Chuku describes her childhood and her close-knit family as happy. “We were certainly not rich. If we were poor, my parents made sure we didn’t notice,” she said. Her parents, who were well-respected in the community, worked hard to ensure their 11 children had access to a solid education. Her father, the only educated person in his family, started his career as a teacher and ended it after 33 years as an officer in the Nigerian Police Force. Her mother was a merchant who managed several roadside restaurants. Chuku credits her parents for her philanthropic heart, as she saw them help hundreds of people throughout their lifetimes.
After establishing Mission Africa, Chuku served as a Program Assistant for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, building strong relationships and support for the nonprofit she would eventually run full-time. “My time at the Gates Foundation fueled my passion and gave me the opportunity to make a tangible difference in millions of lives, simply by showing up at work every day,” said Chuku.
Making tangible differences in people’s lives didn’t end for Chuku when she left the Gates Foundation to focus her efforts on growing Mission Africa. Rather, it’s a theme that defines her life.
Ask Nwanne, a mother of four with no resources to sustain her roadside, second-hand clothing trade; she received a micro loan from Mission Africa last year and is now thriving with extra cash to care for her children and grandchildren. Ask Testimony, who lost both parents to HIV/AIDS and cancer and figured there was no hope of attending high school; she is thriving in school with the help of a Mission Africa scholarship. And there’s Joy, a Mission Africa scholarship graduate who grew up in a polygamous home where her mom was not the preferred wife — which means Joy was not a preferred child who would have the opportunity to attend school. A Mission Africa scholarship allowed Joy to graduate high school and attend college. Jean, another Mission Africa graduate, had few resources for her education after losing both parents at a young age. Jean is now in nursing school after successfully completing high school.
These four women are not alone. Chuku leads the Mission Africa team with a spirit that’s all-inclusive and contagious. Her proven devotion to what she calls “my African children” is exemplified in the organization’s numerous success stories.
Here are just a few accomplishments from Mission Africa’s current programs:
Chuku has led efforts to build strategic partnerships with other nonprofits to better assist underprivileged families in Africa, specifically those living in small, rural villages. These partnership efforts have unified and empowered community leaders (chiefs) to increase their capacity and have strengthened their resolve to improve lives in the villages where Mission Africa offers programs and services. Detailed information on Mission Africa’s partner organizations can be found here.
Chuku isn’t stopping anytime soon. She aims to build well-equipped hospitals and clinics that will provide continuity in health care for villagers, as well as schools and vocational training centers that will give village children equal educational opportunities. “The U.S. is a generous country, and I count it as a huge blessing that my family lives here in Washington state,” said Chuku. She attributes Mission Africa’s success to its generous donors and volunteers, and she has high hopes of growing the organization’s support in 2016.
From her humble roots to inspirational leadership, carrying with her a passion for community service and a dedication to helping vulnerable communities and families worldwide, Chuku continues to chip away at the many obstacles she hopes to overcome. “Together, we are changing lives, one child at a time, one village at a time and one country at a time.”
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Tableau Foundation
The Tableau Foundation is made up of employees and partners of Tableau Software who care deeply about improving the world and believe data can unlock innovation and drive collaboration to help solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Their grants have spawned collaborations between Tableau employees, customers and partners as well as universities and other private and public institutions, and they have seen first-hand how data can drive the kind of innovation needed to move from alleviating the symptoms of the world’s problems to actually solving them. www.tableaufoundation.org
Feb 17: World Affairs Council // YPIN Global Leader Dinner with Congressman Jim McDermott
Feb 18: Pangea Giving // Coffee + Chat
Feb 25: Shoreline Community College // Celebrating Food and Wellness around the World
Feb 27: NPH USA // Carnaval for a Cause Masquerade Party
Mar 18: Landesa // 10th Annual Seed the Change Luncheon
Highlighted Positions
President/CEO – VillageReach
Executive Director – Snow Leopard Trust
Program Coordinator – FSG
For more jobs and resources, visit https://globalwa.org/resources/careers-in-development/
February 25: Networking Happy Hour
March 1: Virtual Reality: Changing How We Engage in the World
March 22: Learn Tableau Software and Get Started With Your Own Data
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A woman covers her mouth outside her home while city workers fumigate to combat the Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes that transmit the Zika virus in El Salvador, Jan. 26, 2016. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)
In response to the recent outbreak of the Zika virus throughout Latin America, health officials in El Salvador have urged women not to get pregnant until 2018 in an effort to combat an increase in a birth defect known as microcephaly, which is suspected to be caused by the mosquito-borne illness.
“We’d like to suggest to all the women of fertile age that they take steps to plan their pregnancies, and avoid getting pregnant between this year and next,” said El Salvador’s Deputy Health Minister Eduardo Espinoza.
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As a lucky mother of three beautiful kids, I can tell you that there are few joys that compare with the birth of a baby. Across the globe, bringing new life into the world is celebrated; parents wait with excitement and anticipation, and those first moments of life are truly extraordinary.
But as a clinician who has spent many years in delivery rooms, I can tell you that there are few sorrows that compare with the loss and devastation faced by parents, families, healthcare providers and communities when a baby is born stillborn. Continue Reading