International Women's Day - March 8, 2013

Kinandi (shelling beans) - our Agricultural Instructor is a widow who looks after her extended family by selling her farm produce

Women - we are mothers, spouses, lovers, teachers, business leaders, caregivers and much more. Next week we celebrate women around the globe who keep the home fires burning with Womens' Week. It culminates in celebration with International Womens' Day on March 8, 2013. In my travels, especially in Africa, I have met women who have been involved in a variety of horrible situations - rape, abuse both mental and physical, husbands who have given their wives HIV and Aids and then left the women to raise their children alone. I am totally amazed at the resilience of these women who bravely continue on most without the assistance of any kind of social aid.They seems to have an inner spirit that allows them to continue on, to work to support their families with food, clothing and school fees.

We women here in the developed world are so blessed with our abundance. For the most part we have so many opportunities for a wonderful life and for those who do encounter difficulties there are a multitude of social service agencies to help those in need. I don't think we can even imagine what some of the women I know in the developing world have gone through and yet they have survived  and still want the best for their families.

On March 8th, please think of women worldwide who suffer silently but are filled with an inner beauty and spirit, a resiliency that transcends their difficulties. I know I'll be thinking of my women friends in Wongonyi Village and Nairobi, Kenya -  Kinandi, a widow and our Agricultural Farm Instructor; Beatrice, our Community Health Care Worker; Margaret my basket making Instructor; Getrude, Ronnie's mother and host to visiting university students and in the slums of Nairobi, Mama Caroline and her co-workers of Jitolee Crafts in Kibera Slums and the women of Bega Kwa Bega Craft Group in Mathare Slums. Remember to speak up for those women. Together we can tell their stories told and all make difference in the lives of women worldwide.

International Women's Day - March 8, 2012

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.