WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT

 

SHE’s Woman Crush Wednesday’s Picks

In honor of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day,  we asked members of our SHE community for their “woman crush” – a woman who inspires them professionally and/or personally. We will post these “Woman Crushes” each Wednesday in March.

Dany Karemera, Production Manager

 

909dJeannette-Kagame

First Lady of Rwanda Jeannette Kagame

My woman crush is Jeanette Kagame, the First Lady of Rwanda. As the First Lady, she has made it her top priority that girls and women are highly regarded by society. She started girls’ empowerment projects, mostly in education. She always encourages girls to become future leaders of our country. For example, now more than 60% of the Rwandan parliament are women, and First Lady Kagame did a lot to make this happen.”

CeCe Camacho, Chief Operating Officer, Global

My abuela (grandmother) married at 14 and raised five children who flourished into wonderful people.  She immigrated with her family from Mexico and worked on the railroad, in the canary as well as a farm laborer. She was the matriarch of her clan who cared deeply for her family and community by sharing crates of fruits and vegetables as well as her famous tortillas. She was an outspoken and tender woman with arms of steel.  

Photo on 3-19-15 at 1.15 PM

SHE’s Woman Crush Wednesday #WCW Picks

In honor of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day,  we asked members of our SHE community for their “woman crush” – a woman that inspires them professionally and/or personally. We will post these “Woman Crushes” each Wednesday in March.

 

 

Bella Wiener with her woman crush Diane Luby LaneOur #climbforSHE leader Bella Wiener’s pick is Diane Luby Lane, the founder/executive director of Get-Lit whom she met while speaking about SHE and her upcoming Mount Kilimanjaro climb at the MUSE Women’s Conference.

“Lane’s LIT KIT curriculum has been adopted by over 45 Los Angeles County high schools and each year she produces one of the largest poetry festivals for teens in the nation. These women are truly inspirational because of their ability to share their messages with the world through such a beautiful form of art.”

 

Chief Instigating Officer’s Elizabeth Scharpf’s pick is a fellow alumna of hers at Harvard’s Kennedy School

Johnson_Sirleaf “Ellen Johnson Sirleaf returned to her home country of Liberia to help rebuild with her community after a horrible war.

She became the 1st female Head of State in Africa and galvanized the global community to help in the rebuilding.”

 

 

Yvonne, our Rwanda’s Head of Business Operations’ pick is Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

ginsburgclose“She has successfully litigated several cases expanding women’s rights as an attorney, winning 5 of 6 Supreme Court cases. As a Supreme Court Justice, she has consistently delivered opinions and dissents that uphold women’s and minority rights, and expand equal protection of the law to all.

And Justice Ginsburg has a sense of humor about herself – she not only delights in the Notorious RBG blog, she stockpiles a collection of “Notorious RBG” t-shirts and gives them to her friends!”

 

Why I Give to SHE: Meet Lara Cely

Lara Cely shares why she gives to SHE.How did you first get involved with SHE?

One of my colleagues at work invited me to a SHE cocktail party! I had read the Nicholas Kristof article, and wanted to learn more about this social enterprise with the fascinating back story (blending banana leaves!). My friends and I like to support women’s health organizations, and when my colleague received the party invitation to hear more about SHE, we were totally on board.

What is unique about SHE?

SHE is that perfect balance of being a revolutionary organization with a simple concept: affordable sanitary pads to help girls stay in school.

What impact have you seen from your donation?

It’s clear there is definite progress with strategic plans:

– Over 7,000 affordable sanitary pads (called go!) introduced for the Rwanda schools and market.

– Almost 300 people have attended SHE health and hygiene awareness workshops for schools and the communities in 2014 alone; 5,000+ have participated since 2010.

– 600+ farmers from 2 women-led banana cooperatives trained to help produce more products for school girls and boost local business income at the same time!

What makes you excited about SHE’s future direction?

I’m most excited about SHE’s scalable, blueprint approach to building a local model that handles a global problem – the lack of affordable sanitary products for women and girls. This model is going to change the rules when it comes to equal opportunity for women in many developing countries.