Posts Tagged ‘Women’s Empowerment’
Frontline Report: Jordan
This year, we will be launching a new Perspectives series called Frontline Reports. This series is intended to provide updates on the countries, contexts, and situations in which we work as they continue to evolve. The reports will be written entirely by program experts and local staff on the ground.
This past March marked the 7-year anniversary of the war in Syria. It is a grim anniversary, marking seven years of loss, suffering and displacement for millions of people across the Middle East. Each month, the world’s attention to the war in Syria ebbs and flows, usually dictated by a surge of media coverage in response to a specific event. But between the intermittent spikes of media attention, millions of people continually endure the consequences of violence and displacement across the Middle East
Seven years into the crisis, the massive needs of displaced populations continue to grow. Families have now mostly depleted whatever resources they managed to flee with at the start of the crisis. They face increased debt, financial pressure, shrinking resources and limited opportunities for generating income. Many are struggling to survive and meet basic needs, which sadly results in an increased reliance on negative coping mechanisms, like early or forced marriage, child labor, domestic violence and exploitative labor. Facing similarly dire circumstances, countries hosting refugees are experiencing increased pressure on already overburdened social, economic and political systems, resulting in a scarcity of resources and growing tensions between the diverse communities residing within Jordan and other countries in the Middle East.
The consequences of displacement are long-term and generational. Recognizing this complexity, World Relief come alongside these communities to build their capacity to find practical and sustainable solutions to their needs; solutions which address the root causes of the issues affecting their communities, not just the consequences.
The foundation of all of World Relief’s work in the Middle East is the belief that affected communities are in the best position to strategize and implement effective and relevant solutions that will endure for generations. Together with the community, World Relief has developed a unique framework that seeks to engage and strengthen the whole family, both as individuals and as a family unit. By targeting entire families through both individual and joint programs, World Relief desires to see vulnerable refugee families and receiving communities healed, safe and thriving, despite the incredible pressures they face.
World Relief’s programs target women, men, boys and girls in a diversity of programs, designed to help promote safe, healthy and thriving families. This has proven an effective strategy in meeting the diverse needs of vulnerable families, but also in protecting women and children, who are disproportionately endangered by violence and displacement.
World Relief’s family strengthening approach in Jordan, for example, includes the following programs, which all use uniquely designed curricula developed together with the affected community:
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Child Friendly Spaces: World Relief provides designated safe spaces where displaced children can come to play, learn and recover some of the essential developmental activities of childhood, with the support of trained facilitators. Sessions include exercise, health, school skills and life-skills.
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Literacy Support: The diverse and significant barriers that children and adults face when they flee their homes as refugees contribute to significant literacy gaps, poor motivation, and an increased risk of negative coping mechanisms. Recognizing this threat, World Relief provides Arabic and English literacy support to illiterate adults and children who are struggling to keep up in school.
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Girls’ Empowerment through Sports: In partnership with the Ministry of Education, this program provides vulnerable Jordanian and Syrian girls with access to sports. Teachers in local schools are equipped to be coaches and provide practical soccer skills as well as life-skills training to girls in the program.
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Caregiver Support Groups: Psychosocial counseling and support groups are made available to displaced women, particularly focused on mothers or caregivers.
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Positive Parenting: Our parenting group uses a curriculum that promotes positive parenting skills to promote healthy and supportive family environments. This curriculum is designed for use with both men and women, emphasizing the need for men to also engage in positive parenting.
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Marriage Strengthening: Refugee couples often face significant marital challenges catalyzed by the extreme pressure and trauma of displacement. Early marriages as well as sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) still exists in many places. World Relief has therefore developed a curricula for men and women on important marriage topics, and is piloting this with both men and women. This is often the first time men are learning and listening to the women’s perspective on important family related topics.
We are so encouraged to see how our staff and volunteers are leading these programs and seeing transformation take place in individuals, within families, and in entire communities. While the needs are many, we have great hope when we see the resolve and commitment of the communities we serve. Healthy families create healthy communities, which in turn form nations. We continue to believe in restoration, healing and thriving futures for families and communities across the Middle East!
Maggie Konstanski has been a part of the World Relief team for over 4 years, and currently serves at the Middle East Programs Technical and Operations Coordinator. With a passion for international human rights, Maggie often uses work-related travel as a platform to tell the powerful stories of the vulnerable families and communities we serve.
How We Can Make Room for Women
In January, World Relief co-hosted a consultation on “Development, Gender, and Christianity” with Wheaton College and the Imago Dei Fund. Faith-based non-profit staff, church leaders, advocacy experts and academics gathered together to discern why—despite greater awareness that investing in women is good for global development*—things aren’t improving for so many women around the world.
The wise women and men present had decades of collective experience with human trafficking, sexual abuse, women’s and children’s health and developing women as individuals and leaders[DN1] . Before we rolled up our sleeves and got to our important work, we allowed ourselves a moment to lament: “How much longer before every woman, created in the image of God, is free to express the image God has placed in her?”
Realities speak to the shrinking spaces women occupy in countries and communities around the world, even in our churches. Violence against women occurs in countries and communities around the world, and even in our churches. The recent #churchtoo movement proved what statistics already show—the rate of sexual and physical assaults in church communities isn’t less than in the rest of society. Globally, 1 in 3 women—churched or not—have a story to tell. White women in the US earn an average 82 cents to men’s dollar. But in many countries, the pay gap is even wider; women earn an average of only 60-75% of men’s wages despite the benefits a woman’s paycheck has to her family and community. Researchers estimate that this year 12 million girls and young women will marry before their 18th birthday, some as young as 10 years old.
Clearly, much work remains to be done.
As a little girl, my dad, a filmmaker, taught me about the “blue hour.” He would pine for this moment when, on a cloudless sky, the red of day and blue of night make room for one another, intersecting to create an irresistible quality of light.
Light is not at its most beautiful at midday or midnight, but rather, at the moment when one is making room for the other. The “blue hour” echoes a lesson we find over and over in Scripture: we are to love and prefer one another; we are to make room for one another.
The woman with the issue of blood had no room among the crowd. Rejected by her community—unclean and unwanted—she had to work hard to get to Jesus, to reach out her hand and touch the hem of his garment. Without even turning, Jesus knew that this woman needed his help. He was her last and only hope. Jesus does not turn away from her need because of her status. Instead, Jesus makes room.
In Luke 22: 25 – 27, Jesus declared: “The kings of the Gentiles rule over their subjects… But I am among you as one who serves.” The King of kings did not come to recline at the table, but to kneel and wash the feet of his disciples. Likewise, Jesus did not come to uphold hierarchies but to break down centuries of injustice.
Jesus comes to us today too, to break down power structures in our communities, to elevate those society overlooks, and to make room for women.
All around us, women are defying the odds. Like the woman who longed to be healed, they’re pressing through crowds toward health and safety for themselves and their children, toward education and into board rooms and pulpits. Some are too tired to press through the crowds. Many don’t see a way through anymore and it is our responsibility to press toward them.
Men and women—working side by side—can transform the role and experience of women in our societies. The idea of elevating women may be threatening, but men actually benefit when women are empowered to lead. When women and men collaborate in decision-making, households, communities, and institutions become more productive and inclusive. Men’s relationships with their wives, children, and communities become more fulfilling. And, men are able to be who God is calling them to be instead of conforming to what society wants them to be.
We are not all called to become activists. But we can all co-labor toward this transformation in our own communities. It begins with responding to the invitation to think deeply about how we can create more room for women in the spaces we are already in.
At World Relief, we are committed to crafting new spaces for women to flourish. We are doing this in simple, tangible, daily ways—in our programming and throughout the organization.
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As the most vulnerable in most communities, women are impacted by our programming. We are working increasingly around metrics that measure maximum impact on women and girls to guide our program design.
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We recently signed the #SilenceIsNotSpiritual Statement in recognition that churches and Christian communities are not exempt from putting women at risk of sexual abuse. Our entire staff and leadership are participating in non-harassment training to ensure that male and female staff work side by side in an equitable, non-threatening way.
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We are intentionally creating opportunities for women leaders at World Relief. Along with others, we recognize the lack of women in top tiers of leadership in the entire faith-based NGO sector as a problem, and are taking practical steps to correct it within our own organization.
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We are continuing to partner with the Wheaton consultation and other collaborations. Much remains to be learned about the important roles women must play at all levels of communities and organizations, and we welcome the opportunity to learn and grow with other development organizations.
We can each do one thing today to elevate a girl or woman. Perhaps this means stepping aside and giving some of our space to her. The question is: are we willing to make room?
* “Aid programs that provide women opportunities to better their health, education, and well-being have effects far beyond a single individual. A woman multiplies the impact of an investment made in her future by extending benefits to the world around her, creating a better life for her family and building a strong community.” (USAID: https://www.usaid.gov/infographics/50th/why-invest-in-women )
Eeva Simard is the Project Director of Human Capital at World Relief. For the past ten years, she’s worked with multiple non-profits, where she has been committed to excellence in project management and communication, common sense leadership and the empowerment and training of colleagues, particularly helping women’s voices be heard at top levels of leadership.
For the Women (feat. Amena Brown)
It’s International Women’s Day!
This year, we say “Thank God for Women” not only with our words but with our commitment to create a better world for women—a world where every woman and girl has the dignity, opportunity and security she deserves.
We’re incredibly grateful to author and spoken word poet Amena Brown, who wrote an original piece entitled For The Women. We invite you to watch and share this video as widely as possible, inviting others to join the dance and fight for justice.
Love Bears All Things
This is Fatima, a 30-year-old Afghan woman and a mother of four. On the first day of World Relief Seattle’s inaugural Women’s Sewing Class, Fatima clutched her pencil and laboriously copied her name on a pre-test. She had gotten her children ready for school, walked nearly a mile to the bus stop and arrived at her first official class—EVER.
The Formation of The Sewing Program
In 2016, World Relief conducted a focus group with recently-arrived Afghan families in Seattle, WA. In it, we discovered that while many of the Afghan men are well-educated and fluent in English, most of the women, like Fatima, are pre-literate, meaning they cannot read or write in their own language. In Afghanistan, where women are culturally bound to stay at home surrounded by friends and family, this presents few issues. Isolated and alone in a new nation, and unable to communicate with others, however, this tradition was hugely damaging to these newly arrived women who were clearly suffering, and in some cases even struggling with depression.
Husbands in the focus group identified this isolation as an insurmountable challenge and sadness, and wanted an opportunity for their wives to participate in activities with other women. As we brainstormed solutions together, the group raised the idea of sewing. As we talked through the potential of a vocational ESL and skill-building sewing program, we realized that not only would it give the women the opportunity to learn new skills that are prized culturally, but that it could also pave the way for them to learn English and join together in community with other refugee women, supported by one another.
The barriers to developing a sewing program however, seemed insurmountable. Where would we find volunteer teachers, sewing machines and adequate space to provide a sewing class for this especially vulnerable group of women? How would we address the issues of transportation and childcare?
Enter Jeanine Boyle.
Jeanine attends Hillside Church, a partner of World Relief Seattle, and is also a national educator for the Singer Sewing Machine company. Three years earlier, Jeanine had felt strongly about starting a sewing class for women. She asked her company for some donations and received ten sewing machines for her class at a local non-profit, yet sadly the logistical issues did not work out. Consequently, Jeanine had 10 machines sitting in her garage.
With the help of Hillside Church and other volunteers, we cleared out space at the church that could be used for a sewing classroom, with an adjoining room for childcare. Two retired members of the church with carpentry experience helped to build four beautifully designed cutting tables, saving several thousand dollars. Our English (ELS) teachers at World Relief helped design the English portions of the class. And Jeanine, with her vast sewing education experience, developed a sewing curriculum. Volunteers came from churches all over, and in February 2017 we enrolled our first cohort of students.
For many of the volunteers this would be the first time they had ever interacted with refugee women, especially Muslim women. Even Jeanine herself had deep reservations about this new experience.
“My life did not include any contact with anyone of the Muslim faith. I had a lot of apprehensions about starting this whole journey. I had a fear of what I did not know. But teaching this class has been a life changing experience. I love these women.”
For highly skilled volunteers like Jeanine, this service is a sacrificial labor of love. Jeanine owns an interior design business and has to juggle her extremely busy business schedule to spend time teaching and preparing for the sewing classes. Yet Jeanine is motivated by love, and by her desire to help bear the burdens of these women, coming alongside them in support.
Debra Voelker, Missions Director at Hillside Church, also volunteers by managing the day-to-day operational details of the class. Debra drives over an hour to volunteer each week.
Like Jeanine, Debra realizes the burden these women face and seeks to ease it through love. She drives long distances and coordinates the many time consuming details each week in a tireless effort to foster and preserve the gift of life-giving relationships for these women.
“I’ve realized that women are women – wherever they are from. Our life circumstances are vastly different, but we have the same concerns – wanting to create a loving home for our families, wanting to provide for our kids, the joy of being in a safe community, and sharing with like-minded women,” Debra says.
Mutual Transformation
The impact of our sewing program has been transformative. Many of the volunteers, including both Jeanine and Debra, have been invited into the homes of the participants and have reciprocated in kind. The sharing of food and friendship outside of class has formed lasting bonds. It has been a beautiful and mutually transformative journey for all the women involved.
Several weeks ago, I ran into Fatima at the local grocery store. She called out my name and we enthusiastically greeted each other in the bulk section. She asked about my children, my husband and my health. We compared our carts and asked each other what we were going to cook. We hugged goodbye and I got a little teary eyed as I reflected on the power of a simple conversation, which wouldn’t have been possible even five months before without the investment of amazing volunteers like Jeanine and Debra.
Yet our sewing program is just one example. Whether it be in the classrooms of Hillside Church, in local community gardens, in hospital waiting rooms, in social security lines, or simply in our living rooms at home, the loving relationships between our volunteers and newly arrived refugees and immigrants has been a joy to witness.
Jeanine and Debra’s story is one of so many, and it’s hard to put their dedication and sacrifice into words. We have volunteers who have sacrificed friendships and even jobs as they’ve embraced God’s call to welcome the stranger, put their love into action, and lighten the burden of others. Oftentimes they are fearful. Oftentimes they are reluctant. Oftentimes it just seems too difficult. Yet they listen, they trust, and the fruits are transformative not only for those they serve, but also for them. It is an example that inspires, and one that should encourage each one of us as we think about how we might continue to live lives of love in the year ahead.
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” – Galatians 6:2
Through the end of the year, we’ll be featuring stories of individuals and communities putting Love in Action—bringing hope to the hurting and shining light in the darkest hours.
Learn more and put your Love in Action today.
Tahmina Martelly serves at the Programs Manager for World Relief Seattle. Originally from Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tahmina lived in Yemen before arriving at a farm in Idaho. A registered dietitian by education, Tahmina has worked with refugee and immigrant resiliency projects for the last 25 years. Most recently, she taught at the University of Utah, division of Nutrition and developed and taught computer literacy classes at the Utah Refugee Education Center. Tahmina has been with World Relief Seattle since 2017 overseeing the new resiliency project multiplier and managing state-funded employment and case management programs.
Thank God for Women — Calling All Women
Photo by Marianne Bach
Thank God for Women is a blog series rooted in gratitude for the strength, courage, and incredible capacity women demonstrate.
Listen, women. It’s been a particularly difficult year. The assaults, insults, and violence towards women in this country and around the world have been devastatingly awful.
Yet, the power, strength, beauty, and creativity found in women continues to rise. I’ve noticed women all around me, called by God, for purposes beyond themselves can’t be contained or shut down. Pastors, politicians, musicians, athletes rising, rising, rising, as they add love and justice and peace and beauty into the world.
Earlier this year, I started a new church — it’s called Sunday Supper Church — because I had heard from God that this is who He made me to be, and that it was time for me to lean into my calling, and follow Him as He made something great. I felt unqualified, insecure, and scared. But God’s gentle voice reminded me day-after-day, that we were in this together, and that because He had made me to do this, He wouldn’t leave or forget to help me.
Because when the call of God is clear, you can’t wait to start. You can’t wait for the day you don’t feel scared. You have to start scared. You can’t wait for permission, or for the negative internal voices to be silenced. You have to start without permission, while the doubtful voices continue to shout inside. You have to create and lead as God intended, because the world needs you and your unique, one-of-a-kind offering.
Women, the world needs us to lead as God intended, specifically in this difficult time, to lead with strength and wisdom and compassion. To stand tall and proud while doing our thing, unwilling to turn back.
As women, we might never have full permission to engage: in church, in our communities, in politics, or in the corporate world. But we’re going to lead anyway––overcoming withheld permission and our internal fears––because our permission to engage and lead comes from our Father. The one in whose image we are equally made.
Because that’s the thing about women.
They are brave and unstoppable, resembling their Maker.
I thank God for this unquenchable, courageous spirit in women.
If God has called you to do something—start a new church, open a business, start a family, travel the world, argue cases in court, train to be an elite athlete, do it! If you’re waiting for the right moment, enough money, everyone’s approval, the system to change, you’re going to be waiting a super long time. Don’t wait. Do your thing.
I thank God for women. Strong, brave, creative, unstoppable women.
Amy Dolan is Pastor of Sunday Supper Church, a new, table-based dinner environment in Chicago that seeks to gather diverse communities together for the sake of creating peace + justice in the city.
Connect with Amy on social! Twitter: @adolan | Instagram @_adolan
Thank God for Women — Thank God for My Mum
Thank God for Women is a blog series rooted in gratitude for the strength, courage, and incredible capacity women demonstrate.
My mother was raised in a religious family. She taught me and my three siblings the basics of Christianity and taught us to love people around us. When my father died on the battlefield, my mother was there for us, uniting us as a family—loving and caring for each other even though we had hard times. As a single parent, it was never easy for my mother to provide everything but she made sure we had what we needed.
For many years, my mum worked endlessly to see that my siblings and I got the best education, all while looking for jobs that would sustain us as the needs of our family increased. We always had people from different backgrounds staying with us, and my siblings and I couldn’t understand why. As time went by I came to realize that my mum was always friendly and hospitable to everyone that came by. She wanted to give the best of her time to them.
After the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi occurred, my mother and I moved from Uganda back to Rwanda (where she was born) to get a more stable life—my siblings stayed behind to finish school. For 6 years, we went back and forth between Uganda and Rwanda to visit my siblings because I missed them. I once asked her why she had brought me alone along with her and left my siblings behind. She told me that “I love you so much and your siblings can’t be with us now, but I love them very much too.” It wasn’t long before we were reunited with them for good. In the meantime, my mother had found a job as a nurse at a clinic in Kigali. The school I went to was close to the clinic and after school, I would meet her at work and we would walk home together.
The nature of my mother’s relationship with me was not only of a child and a parent but also of a friend and confidant. She encouraged me and made me feel important to her. This made me a very confident person.
Along the way, my mother found salvation and she found new meaning and purpose in life. Life as a single parent was never easy for her, she was constantly striving hard to make ends meet—the weight of that was often heavy. With Jesus in her life, she was so much happier and full of hope because she had found faith.
In 2002, my mother started working with World Relief Rwanda, which at the time was helping people to understand and accept living positively with individuals who were HIV positive. She endeavored to get to know and establish relationships with them, so they could trust her and accept her teachings. As a result of her counseling and spiritual mentoring, these individuals were able to reunite and live in harmony with other people, which wasn’t the case before because a stigma had isolated them. The more she worked and the longer she stayed with them, the more my mother got closer to the most vulnerable.
The more I saw my mum go every week to spend hours and days with suffering people, the more I learned from the stories she shared about her experience. She always reminded me that even if it doesn’t feel like you have enough to give to the most vulnerable, physically being with them, praying with them and socializing with them provided relief and community for them. For over 15 years, she has always been an advocate of the most vulnerable, and most especially for women in the community.
In 2007, I joined a program called Choose Life at my high school to receive training to then train my peers in the community. I was excited for this opportunity because I was able to reach out to my fellow youth, and because of the stories my mother would tell me about serving the most vulnerable.
I thank God for my mum and her lifelong impact. Because of her I went on to study Computer Science in college where my passion to serve the vulnerable grew stronger and led me to pursue my second degree in Community Work and Development. She has influenced me to pursue the work I am doing today.
Bob Allan Karemera is World Relief Rwanda Strategic Partnership Officer for more than 4 years. In his role, he coordinates relationships with with seven church partners and donors, connecting and engaging them in meaningful ways to WR Rwanda’s work. With a degree from Mount Kenya University in Kigali in Social Work and Administration, Bob further developed his passion for community work.
Thank God for Women — A Conversation with Courtney O’Connell
Thank God for Women is a blog series rooted in gratitude for the strength, courage, and incredible capacity women demonstrate.
After living and working in South Africa and Zambia, Courtney O’Connell came to World Relief in 2011. With a master’s degree in International Development from Eastern University, Courtney took on the role of Savings for Life (SFL) Senior Program Advisor, supporting program staff in the nine countries where World Relief implements SFL. She loves living in Rwanda, close to where Savings for Life is being implemented, and when she’s not working, Courtney can be found running and biking throughout Rwanda’s beautiful countryside. Recently, Cassidy Stratton, World Relief’s Marketing Coordinator, had an opportunity to catch up with Courtney to hear how she’s seen World Relief’s Savings for Life program empower women around the world:
Cassidy Stratton: You noted that you had already lived in Africa for 3 years. How did you specifically get connected to World Relief?
Courtney O’Connell: When I was job searching, I knew I wanted to do economic development in Africa with a Christian organization, and so I just went to some of the big names that I could immediately think of. World Relief actually had my current position posted, so without even thinking, or even proofreading, I submitted my resume. And, by the grace of God, I got it.
In my previous work overseas, I had seen organizations that claimed to be Christian on the website, and when I went to the field to see their programs, there was actually nothing Christian about them. And I was not sure if World Relief was like that since I had not seen them overseas. So I reached out to a professor of mine who was writing a book for which Stephen Bauman, the president of World Relief at that time, was submitting a chapter. She forwarded me Stephen’s chapter, which was all about working with the church and the heart and soul of what World Relief is about. As I read it, I said “Man, that sounds really good! And if they are who they say they are then I would totally be in..”
As I left the U.S., I thought, “I’m not selling my car until they prove that they are who they say they are.” Not that my car was nice; it was my Grandma’s hand-me-down Buick. Well, I moved to Rwanda in July of 2011. And I immediately, I fell in love with the way we do our work. Everything Stephen wrote about was true. There truly is a partnership with the local church, and the desire is to see the local church shine, not the organization. And to really infuse and integrate biblical beliefs into programs. To me, that was so unique. I was, and still am, thrilled to be a part of an organization that cares for the vulnerable in the way we do.
CS: Can you tell me more about your current position?
CO: I am the Savings for Life Senior Program Advisor—a program that forms community-based savings groups, where people pool their own money together in order to give loans to each other, charging interest. And after a set period of time—approximately 9 – 12 months—everyone takes back the savings they had put in, plus the portion of interest that they earned. So then it’s a very useful amount of money that a family can use to pay for school fees, invest in their farm, start a business, repair their house and the like. The best thing is that it is all their own money. It’s not like a loan from a bank. And when they go home at the end of this cycle for savings, they have in their hands probably the most amount of money that they’ve ever had at one time. It’s such an empowering program, and it’s great to be a part of it.
World Relief is running this program in 10 countries, and my role is to work alongside the program managers and field staff that are actually running the program. My role is to support them, help set strategies, prepare proposals, and make sure they have all of the tools to run a successful program. It’s cool for me because I get to be pretty close to the action, and I get to walk alongside the staff, the real heroes who are doing the work. Sometimes I feel like a cheerleader, cheering the programs along and helping teams to see what’s possible.
CS: What role have you seen women play in the Savings for Life Program?
CO: In most of the context where we’re working, the women are the glue of the society. They are the strong one’s in the family who make things happen. Unfortunately in most of Sub-Saharan Africa, the traditional gender roles are that the men are the ones who make all of the important household financial decisions and are the controllers of the money. The women are the ones who are tasked to provide for the family on a daily basis, yet they don’t have a lot of authority or even their own money to make things happen.
We hear a lot of testimonies from women saying that it’s embarrassing because they have to go and—they use the word “beg”—their husband in order to get money to buy salt, buy oil, etc. in order to prepare food. If she can’t prepare food then she is not doing her gender role. But in order to do her role within the family, she actually has to ask her husband for help. So it’s this huge power dynamic struggle.
The Savings for Life program worldwide is 80% women. And we see that women are the ones that benefit from this. They say now they do not have to beg their husbands because they can provide for themselves. They have this glow about them—this empowerment, this hope—because they feel like they are now doing the role that they are designed to do. Not only that, but they are also starting new businesses and paying school fees for their children, all things that had only been a dream before.
CS: Can you recall a specific success story of a Savings for Life group?
CO: I remember visiting a savings group at the beginning of their savings cycle, and they said to me, “We’re just poor people and can’t save, so can you give us money?” And then I actually went to visit that same group 9 months later when they were having the day of distribution. They literally had a table mounted with money. You could just see the joy, the hope, the empowerment, the confidence beaming out of them. And they were able to say, “This is our money, and no one helped us do this.” To me, this is what we’re here for. That’s the success. When people say that we can set our own goals and no one else has to do it for us.
CS: Is there a specific woman that has impacted your work?
CO: Another story I want to tell you about is about a woman named Adele. She lives in Burundi, one of the poorest countries where we work. It’s a beautiful country and has a lot of resources, but it also has a lot of poverty and corruption. Adele lives way out in the middle of a village, and Savings for Life comes that way, and she decides that she is going to join. During her first cycle of savings, she was able to buy a goat. This was the very first goat that her family owned. A goat out in the village is first a huge status and second a long-term savings. She was so happy to buy this goat. And by the second cycle of the savings program, she was able to buy a cow. Her family was able to use this cow to plow their fields. The savings group was impacting multiple areas of her life.
A few years after she joined the savings group, the community staff member approached her and asked if she could be a volunteer for Savings for Life, and she accepted. She got trained on how to be a volunteer village agent, and then she went out and started other training groups. Now she’s working in her own community and neighboring communities, helping to teach other people about this program that has been so impacting for her.
CS: How have you seen the savings groups also serve as support groups?
CO: The social aspect of the groups really help. There was a woman in a savings group that became a widow. She ended up moving back to her family, but she had a lot of relational problems and it wasn’t healthy for her stay in the household that she grew up in. And so her savings group actually built her a house. It was their own initiative. World Relief was not part of it at all. It was that this group of women cared for each other so much that they saw their sister in need and did something about it.
To me that is just really powerful how the social aspect of the savings group helps the women walk alongside each other to achieve their goals financially. And to just have social capital and strength. It helps relationships go way deeper.
CS: Have there been any women in your life that have influenced your work and the way you engage with women around the world?
CO: The small group that I’m a part of. There are women here in Rwanda that we meet on a weekly basis to walk through life together. There are challenges of living abroad, and being away from your home culture, and sometimes there are just frustration of life, and to be with other people who you know want the best for you and care about you and ask how they can help you. I have been impacted by that and have found a lot of solidarity and strength from these women.
I liken that to the solidarity and strength other women can get from their Savings for Life group.
CS: Why do you Thank God for Women?
CO: I thank God for women because I see the strength that they provide for their families and the hope that they provide for their children. Women are the ones in the family that are able to change course. Their family might have been living in poverty for generations and generations, but if a woman has hope, and has the confidence and the empowerment, then she can change that course for the generations to come.
And I think the real strength in rural communities, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, are the women who are holding everything together, making changes for their families and their kids. I think women are the changemakers in our world.
Give today to create a better world for women.
Thank God for Women — We’re Hiring
Thank God for Women is a blog series rooted in gratitude for the strength, courage, and incredible capacity women demonstrate.
No one in their right mind would apply for a job that had no vacations, no pay, and a workload that more than doubles around the holidays—especially a holiday in your honor. More than any other holiday, Mother’s Day evokes the full range of emotions in people.
The propensity for a vast pendulum swing of sentiments is both deep and wide when it comes to Mother’s Day because mothering has so many different stages and phases.
There are the mommas that are in their first few moments of mothering. They are new to the journey and deep down inside they are wondering will I ever sleep again.
There are those in the trenches with little ones that wear the badge of food stains and puke on their shirts wondering, “will I ever take another uninterrupted shower in my life?”
There are those wading in the choppy waters of the testing years of motherhood. You have colored many grey hairs and your knees are wobbly and skinned from praying that your children would find a path that leads them to wholeness and freedom.
There are the single mom’s that are more than deserving of adorning themselves each morning in a super woman cape as they shoulder the responsibilities of being both parent and provider outside of a partnership.
There are those rejoicing with vibrant and fulfilling relationships with their children.
There are those mourning in the grief of a miscarriage, failed adoption, or loss of a child.
There are those walking the desert road of infertility. Feeling alone and discouraged choking back tears at every other woman’s baby shower and birth announcement.
There are the adoptive moms, foster moms, mentor moms, and spiritual moms that pull children into their hearts and homes and love them as their own.
There are those who experience disappointment, heartache, and distance with their children and this day highlights and underscores the ever-present ache that you carry.
There are those who lost their mothers…and the missing of their own Momma vibrates through their being.
There are those who experienced abuse at the hands of their own mother—and they feel conflicted, challenged and even confused as to how to hold their range of emotions within their being.
There are those who are single and long to be married and mothering their own children and they try to hold their head high on this day when their heart feels tender with unmet desire.
There are step-moms, maneuvering their way through the intricacies of blending families together.
There are those who placed children up for adoption that still hold that child in their hearts.
There are those whose nests have become emptier and they are now steering a new ship with less cargo and the shift in weight has left them feeling unbalanced and uneven.
There are many more categories and complexities and certainly not enough sections in the card department for all the different “mothers” in this world.
Today on Mother’s Day, where we celebrate a job well done, a job that is often thankless & profitless and rarely deposits resources into our retirement funds.
Let’s choose to celebrate one another instead of comparing one another.
Let’s choose to delight in one another and the distinct ways in which we mother instead of disregarding our differences.
Let’s sprinkle praise and blessings and encouragement on all mom’s everywhere instead of remaining silent and secluded.
Let’s see and celebrate our children…. All children that we have the privilege to mother as sacred teachers sent from God that bring with them a spiritual curriculum to grow our souls to deeper levels of perseverance, character, hope and love.
Here’s to you Moms, may you delight in all the beautiful benefits from this crazy job called MOTHERING.
Jeanne Stevens is one of the lead pastors of Soul City Church in the dynamic West Loop neighborhood of Chicago, IL. Jeanne has had the opportunity to teach, pastor and speak in to the lives of thousands of people across the US and around the world. Her passion to develop leaders, encourage people to live from the fullest part of themselves and to live boldly give her a unique voice of hope and challenge. You can follow Jeanne on Instagram & Twitter – @JeanneMStevens and become her friend on Facebook – Jeanne Stevens.
Thank God for Women — Heroes in the Fight for Justice
Thank God for Women is a blog series rooted in gratitude for the strength, courage, and incredible capacity women demonstrate.
A few years ago, a dear friend gave me a book titled, Women Are Heroes. It is filled with beautiful portraits and stories of women around the world whose very existence is heroic. I flip through it often and I am constantly inspired by the resilience, strength and grace that women posses.
You don’t have to look very far to find disturbing statistics about women across the globe. Women, on average, still make less than men. We are more prone to being victimized by sexual violence. We have less access to education. The list goes on. But somehow, despite all of the data, there are women who continue to defy the odds—fighting for justice in their communities, raising families with inadequate resources, building businesses out of nothing, and striving for educational opportunities to not only better themselves but the people around them as well.
My line of work has afforded me the privilege of traveling all around the world and wherever I go, I am always in awe of the women I meet.
I have visited with women in war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. Women who have lived through atrocities of war and sexual violence against their bodies. But in spite of all they have experienced, they continue to work towards the healing of themselves, their own, and the healing of other women in their communities. These women speak of forgiveness, hope and peacebuilding in their communities.
I have listened to women in Kenya share how they started a savings group so that they could pay for their kids’ uniforms and school fees. They were soon able to start their own businesses, and then began to pay the school fees for other children in the community who were in need.
I have sat with women from both Israel and Palestine as they shared their painful stories of loss, what forgiveness looks like and how they can begin to lead their communities to understand the narrative of the “other.”
I am surrounded by countless women—many whom I am honored to call friends—here in the United States who have committed their lives to advocate for those who suffer under the oppression of racial, gender, and economic injustice.
When women are not allowed to fully express their God-given potential, it is affront to our Creator and a disservice to all of humanity.
Throughout history, countless women have ignored the limitations that society has placed on them and fought, against all odds, for the opportunity to flourish. Women like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Malala Yousafzai, Yuri Kochiyama, Berta Cáceres, Katherine G. Johnson, Septima Clark, the millions of refugee women around the world—the list goes on. These women have blazed trails, smashed ceilings, fought countless battles so that the next generation could dream bigger, soar higher and achieve things they never thought to be possible.
The fight for women’s rights means equal rights for all. Women work for the betterment of families, communities and nations. There is a deep understanding that we are all connected to each other and we all rise and fall together.
So today—and every day—I thank God for women. The dreamers, troublemakers, peacemakers, bridge builders, trailblazers, ceiling crushers, and image bearers of the Creator. The women who see injustice in our world and refuse to stay silent. Those who work to infuse radical love and hope into our world.
Women are heroes and I stand on the shoulders of the ones who have gone before me, and I link arms with the present day warriors. Together, we continue the fight for justice for all people.
Chi Chi Okwu is a Senior Church Advisor for World Vision USA—working with churches and parachurch organizations to build strategic partnerships focusing on community development and relief work globally. She is passionate about issues relating to faith and justice specifically in the areas of race, gender and reconciliation, and enjoys speaking and writing on those topics. Chi Chi currently resides in Chicago and enjoys traveling, cooking, watching sports and spending quality time with friends and family.
Thank God for Women — The Village Nearby
Thank God for Women is a blog series rooted in gratitude for the strength, courage, and incredible capacity women demonstrate.
The Village Nearby is an chapter from The Mother & Child Project: Raising our Voices for Health and Hope—compiled by Hope Through Healing Hands’ Faith-based Coalition for Healthy Mothers and Children Worldwide.
Deborah Dortzbach currently serves as World Relief’s Senior Health Advisor. Her extensive background in international public health has equipped her to oversee maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, child development, adolescent health, and anti-trafficking programs for over twenty-five years.
In 2015, Zondervan published The Mother & Child Project: Raising our Voices for Health and Hope, featuring personal stories from women around the world—including Deborah’s. Her story covers her work in the late 1970s, and journeys through a time when she was held hostage while pregnant. She applauds the strength of the women who surrounded her at that time. We thank God for Deborah and the work she continues to do to empower women. Here’s an excerpt her story…
I thought I would deliver my firstborn child by myself in a makeshift lean-to on a windswept hill far from a health facility. I was terrified.
There was no one to give me prenatal care. No one to coach me. No one to talk to about my fears. No emergency backup for complications. No one except…soldiers, hovering.
I am a nurse and was taken hostage while pregnant by the Eritrean Liberation Front and held in a remote, desolate location near the Sudan border. One day, as I wandered in allowable short distances, I discovered others like myself in a nearby village. They were Tigre women, clustered around each other as they framed their nomadic huts. Some were pregnant; some had children tugging at their long, faded skirts as they stretched straw mats over simple poles. One woman stood alone. She had no children and looked sad and abandoned.
I went to them, and we chatted, each in our own mother tongue, as together we thrust grass mats over the acacia sticks, bounced babies in our arms, and laughed at each other’s strange expressions. I put their weathered hands on my bulging bump of baby, and they seemed to curiously question, “What are you doing here?”
I have had many years now to reflect on that question. I was eventually released, received good medical care, and delivered a healthy baby boy. But my newfound friends were never freed from the captivity of unsafe motherhood and the future opportunity to participate in decisions about their families and their own well-being. Were I to return to the same hill today, I wonder if they would ask me the very same question, in the past tense, and what my answer would be. “What have you done, for us?”
The Tigre moms and millions like them, let us know that before us is a choice—to improve maternal health, or to actually increase maternal harm through just doing nothing. While we get genuinely interested for a brief season or for some project silos in maternal health, we all know the deeper issues of behavior and structural change take time and perseverance. Our commitments must be unswerving and unending.
Fundamentally, as Christians, we work and strive to improve maternal health because it’s about valuing who a woman is as God made her and treasures her, not because of a role or function, marital status, maternal status, or even because of need, as great as that may be. Needs and resources will come and go—but the intrinsic worth of woman as God sees her, will always warrant our highest efforts to esteem her and fight for her equality and full expression of honor, dignity, safety, and health.
The account in the Gospels[1] of the bleeding woman healed by Jesus demonstrates this. The unnamed woman, bleeding for 12 years, was stigmatized, spiritually ostracized, extremely weak, and economically impoverished. Yet, drawn by the working of Christ in her life, she ventured into a crowded social space and touched Jesus. He cared so deeply and so thoroughly for her, that He allowed her blood-impure status to spiritually defile him. It instantly healed the woman.
What a beautiful picture for us of the spiritual healing soon to come through the defilement Jesus took upon himself on the cross! God chose the body of woman through which to be born (Mary) and now the body of a woman to bring a foreshadowing of His healing power through death. Can there be any doubt He loves, treasures, honors, and redeems women and seeks to bring His redemption and completeness to all humankind in brokenness and suffering?
[1] Matthew 9:20-22; Mark 5:25-34; Luke 8:43-48
Join us as we support those whose work raises the value of women and provides the opportunities for growth and progress.