It Matters.

What’s worse: writing and publishing an opinion piece that may have consequences, OR being inconsequential?

This question loomed in front of me and 19 of my new Ford Public Voices Fellows as we kicked off our year-long program with The OpEd Project to ensure our ideas help shape the important conversations of our age. I’m joined with some of our nation’s top thinkers working in economic and social justice.

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Despite their top-notch thinking, individuals like my fellow fellows are often underrepresented in main stream media and public debate.  The root problem is not a lack of knowledge or experience, but a culture in which minority voices (especially women) rarely have the inside information, high-level support and inside connections to become influential on a large-scale.

Well, it’s time to change that!  But how do we do that?  Is it straight forward?  After the past 12 hours together, I’ve concluded that it actually isn’t!  In fact, there are many considerations that run through our minds before putting pen to paper.  Do I have the time?  Will this have impact?  And strikingly, will this have consequences?  Consequences can include formidable things like lack of safety, polarization, termination of funding.  So that leads fellows like us and others like us, making measured decisions. 

Is it worth it?  Absolutely.  Because we believe that not sharing our expertise will have more negative consequences than not doing anything at all.

Get ready to read this space!

#climbforSHE Bella Wiener takes top honors

#climbforSHE campaign founder Bella Wiener was recently acknowledged as a young game changer at the recent MUSE Women’s Conference in Bend, OR. Bella shared the stage at the 3-day conference with Myrlie Evers-Williams, Daphne Zuniga, and other female catalysts for change. The following week, Bella won the Young Hero Award by the Bend Chamber of Commerce’s Women of the Year Awards. Bella’s adventurous spirit serves as an inspiration to many!

Health and Hygiene Manager Nadia Hitimana kicked off our initiative to train primary school teachers about menstrual health and hygiene management with 50 teachers from the Eastern District of Rwanda.

Teaching the ABCs about Menstrual Hygiene

Guest post by Nadia Hitimana, Health and Hygiene Manager, Rwanda

Our main goal of our teacher’s training initiative is to provide accurate information about menstrual hygiene management, or MHM. Education has always been our first step in breaking the silence and taboos about menstruation. We’re starting with teachers, whom will then train other staff members and key student leaders. This multiplier effect will then spread into the communities.

We began with a group of 50 teachers in November, and our objectives were (1) to increase teachers’ knowledge and skills about MHM; and (2) to equip teachers to train our MHM curriculum with their students.

Teachers deeply appreciated our training program. Our curriculum covered the gamut of health knowledge and related topics. The teachers were receptive, yet prevailing myths and taboos still came up as points of contention. I couldn’t believe it when one teacher still was not convinced that some women should be farming when menstruating.

Another teacher, however, expressed a new sense of admiration for his wife after learning about the menstrual cycle. “I am ashamed for blaming her about not being able to control the number of pregnancies she has had. I can’t imagine how confusing and stressful it must be for her and other women who are not informed.”

Our work with the 50 teachers continues throughout this year. We will continue to work with these teachers throughout 2015 so they can be effective MHM education trainers at their schools.

Stay tuned as we share more about our work with teachers this year!

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.

Top Moments of 2014

Looking back…2014 was an incredible year in building our sustainable business so millions of girls in Rwanda will no longer miss school simply because they have their periods. None of those moments could have happened without your investment in our vision.  Here’s our top moments that you need to know.

10. SHE’s featured in Marie Claire’s “Six Simple Ways to Save the World”

9. Nadia Hitimana is selected among thousands of young leaders to be a part of President Obama’s inaugural class of Young African Leadership Initiative.

8. Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn feature Founder Elizabeth Scharpf in their latest book A Path Appears for our social innovation. 

7. We completed renovations of our production site and began large-scale operations in March!

6. We celebrated the first-ever Global Menstrual Hygiene Day in Rwanda!

5.  Bella Wiener decides to take on menstrual taboos in 2015 – by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro!

Elizabeth Scharpf and Bella Wiener

4. Our go! brand officially launches in Rwanda!

go! package with pads and banana fiber, April 2014, Perttu Saralampi_ 2

Duha Schoolgirls with go pads| Ngoma, Rwanda| 11.07.2014

3. We began our teachers’ training in Rwanda with 50 teachers well trained about the menstrual hygiene ABCs.

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2. We returned to the women farmers who supply us our banana fiber and delivered them each their own package of go! pads.

Banana farmers with go! pads in Rwanda.

1.  Our go! pads are now in the hands of the girls that need them. In 2015, we can reach thousands more by purchasing more equipment, training our team, and delivering our education to schools.

Duha schoolgirls with SHE LaunchPads Ngoma Rwanda 11.07.2014  low res

SHE built a factory this year. Watch us at work.

Around this time last year, you helped us build our production site in Ngoma so we can begin delivering our LaunchPads to 3,000 girls. This year, we made it happen and we couldn’t have done it without you.

See for yourself what you helped to build and how you are making an impact in the lives of girls and women in Eastern Rwanda.

Now, you can help us change an economy. You can help us reach our end-of-year fundraising goal of $200,000 so we can build more machines, deliver business training, and equip thousands of teachers and students with essential health education.

2014 was a great year and 2015 promises to be better. Your donation will help sustain our manufacturing business that will improve the lives of girls and their communities.