Today is International Women's Day celebrating women worldwide with this year's theme "Empowering Rural Women." It is hard for women here in the developed world to think that women are impoverished in the developing world.
My work in Kenya has given me a true appreciation of all that women in developing countries have to deal with - HIV/Aids, lack of food, proper shelter, difficulty in paying her children's school fees, husbands who leave to find better employment but fail to send funds home to support their families, rape and much more. I have only respect for these women who seem to draw from a spirit deep inside themselves to accept, deal with and rise above these problems. They have a true resiliency that I don't know if I could find within myself.
We need to support these women and help them move from poverty to prosperity by assisting them with education, training, and microfinance loans. I have seen the benefit that these women get from a small loan that can help them improve their business and increase income to support their families. Training can give them new skills again to help with income generation like the woman in the photo above. She works for Bega Kwa Bega, a fair trade organization in Mathare slums in Nairobi. Here former drug users, prostitutes and alcoholics have been given life skills and craft training and now are able to get useful work. Her life has changed for the better.
Today celebrate a woman who is special and close to you or a woman you don't know in a developing country, think about the beauty that lies within her despite her circumstances.
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