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With finances a little tight this year, I've had to reduce the number of organizations I'm donating to in 2009. One of the ones I am continuing to support is Women for Women International.
This is my second year as a "sister," which means that I pay $27 a month to support one woman for a year while she goes through a program to help her rebuild her life after war. I also write a letter to her each month; sometimes she writes back. At the end of the year, if I'd like to continue being a sister, I am matched with a new woman. I was thrilled when Zainab Salbi, Women for Women International's Founder and CEO, agreed to an interview with me for the Big Vision Podcast. (edited transcript below).
During our conversation, I was particularly moved by her revelation that she started Women for Women International not only to fill a social need, but also for her own healing. Her personal story is chronicled in the memoir, Between Two Worlds: Escape From Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam.
Our conversation began with Zainab describing how Women for Women International serves women survivors of war. Please note that there is a graphic description of what one women endured, but the rest of the interview is very uplifting--I promise! You can also listen to the interview on the Big Vision Podcast site, or download it from iTunes.
Zainab Salbi: Women for Women International aims at helping women move from victims, to survivors, to active participants. The way we do that is by asking every single woman around the world to sponsor one woman at a time by sending her $27 a month, along with a letter to start a communication link between the two women. You get her picture. You get her letters. You get to exchange as many letters as you want with her. It depends really on both of you, how much you want to do that.
This is our own form of public diplomacy, where women are reaching out to each other despite all of their boundaries, or their differences, or whatever, and looking at their connections and similarities.
Once the sponsored woman gets into the program - and she usually is one of the most socially excluded women in her own community within a conflict or post-conflict area - she is grouped with a group of 20 other women in what's called a "women's circle."
She goes through an intensive training program in an educational track, that teaches her about her rights as a woman in health, economy, society, and politics, among other things. She also goes through a vocational skills and business skills training track, where it ends up giving her tangible skills, so she can get a job.
It's a one-year program. The women meet every other week in the women's circles in what we call, "safe havens." These are our offices where, literally, there may be fighting outside, or just instability outside.
The women are meeting inside. There is a group of women discussing women's rights, and another group is discussing their bodies. Another group is discussing their legal rights, and another group is learning organic farming. Another group is learning how to make tiles or bricks.
Literally, the safe haven for women is the only space where they can go, and learn, and share their stories. At the end of the year, upon their graduation, the goal becomes, how can we help them get a job? So, we do different things from microcredit lending, to commercial organic farming, to social enterprises, where the job becomes, how do we help her get a job?
I just came from a meeting where I was told that the women we are servicing in Southern Sudan are earning double the per capita income in that country. The women that we are servicing in Congo, where, if they are lucky, they get $0.20 to $0.30 a day before we get them - these are the most socially and economically excluded women - now they are earning $140 a month.
So, there are lots of tangible results from what we are doing, and that's how we measure our success.
That's the story of Women for Women. We work in countries like Congo, Rwanda, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, among
