This International Women’s Day (and week), let’s come together and celebrate the stories of women who show resilience, strength and courage every day. Opportunity International works with many of these women. In fact, more than 85% of our clients are women. With determination, knowledge and the support of microfinance services, these women have transformed not only their lives, but the lives of their families and communities.

Here is the story of just one of these amazing women, Rosemary Namande. Rosemary’s life has been deeply affected by the AIDS epidemic. The disease has taken her daughter, two siblings, a nephew and the parents of 11 children in her community. Rosemary was able to adopt these children and provide them with shelter, safety, support and an education in large part due to her entrepreneurial spirit. Forty years ago, Rosemary opened a school for infants. Today, equipped with a staff of over 50 people and Opportunity loans, she has five permanent buildings that house an orphanage and an elementary school that allows over 900 children to go to school.

But Rosemary’s impact doesn’t just end with the children. She uses the increased income from her loans to reinvest in her community. She adopts orphans, hires widows to teach marketable skills, helps women establish businesses, leads a local women’s council, and opens her school to other community activities.
I believe that Susan Gillette of the Women’s Opportunity Network had Rosemary in mind when she said “Strong women mother the world.” If you know other strong and inspiring women like Rosemary, please post a tribute to them on the Global Opportunity Quilt. Help us celebrate women in honor of International Women’s Day.

-Ruth-Anne Renaud, Vice President, Women’s Philanthropy & the Women’s Opportunity Network, Opportunity International

To have so many different people – influential in their own way – viewing photos of women who are reducing poverty in their countries and conversing about this issue was a great moment for me and my colleagues. But don’t just take our word for it. Check out what Cindy McCain and Connie Britton had to say about their experiences in Ghana and Sierra Leone and what you can do to help:

The photos, which were taken by ONE’s Morgana Wingard, will be on display in the Russell building on Capitol Hill through Friday, March 12. If you live in the Washington D.C. area, please feel free to stop by and learn about the incredible work women in developing countries are doing for their families, communities and countries.

Watch:

This week, in observance of International Women’s Day, global leaders and advocates joined the call for equal rights and equal opportunities for all women. Yet, as we celebrate women’s achievements, we must also remember that many challenges still remain and that women’s empowerment can mean the difference between life and death.

Far too many women are still powerless against the threat of HIV, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where women and girls represent about 60% of HIV infections. AIDS is the leading killer of women of reproductive age worldwide. Current HIV prevention strategies such as condoms, although effective, are not practical for women who cannot persuade their husbands or partners to use them, who want children or who are at risk for violence. Women still lack an effective way to protect themselves against HIV.

Microbicides, a new class of biomedical products in development, would address one of the central gaps in the existing range of HIV prevention options. Female-initiated HIV prevention options, such as microbicides, would help give women greater control over their own health.

At the International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM), we develop microbicides based on the same antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) being used successfully to treat HIV/AIDS and to prevent mother-to-child transmission. ARV-based microbicides could revolutionize women’s ability to protect themselves from HIV and could be developed into easy-to-use options, such as monthly vaginal rings and once-daily gels and films.

While women may be at greater risk of HIV, they are not helpless—they just need the right tools to protect their own health and their family’s health.

The greatest achievements in women’s rights have resulted from relentless commitment, persistence and innovation. Facing the growing challenge of HIV/AIDS requires more of the same.

-Dr. Zeda Rosenberg, CEO, International Partnership for Microbicides

Here’s what ONE’s President and CEO David Lane had to say about the book:

“This is a fascinating book about a compelling woman who, when faced with personal tragedy, chose not to succumb but to fight—and not just for herself, but for millions of other people affected by extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS. Princess Zulu’s is a challenge to us all to focus less on our own worries and more on the opportunity we have, every day, to help others in our families, communities and around the globe. It is also a reminder about what can be achieved when brave individuals speak out in the face of fear, injustice and stigma.”

On Wednesday, in commemoration of International Women’s Day this week, ONE is bringing that message to Capitol Hill with a photo exhibit called Women Who Go Beyond: Success Stories from Africa. The exhibit premiere is taking place tomorrow at 1:30 pm in Russell Building Rotunda, a beautiful space located in the heart of Capitol Hill. There, ONE will be joined by Cindy McCain, a humanitarian in her own right and wife of Senator John McCain and actress Connie Britton of NBC’s television drama Friday Night Lights. If you live in the D.C. area, please join us tomorrow for the 1:30 pm exhibit premiere, or come see it anytime this week during normal business hours.

The exhibit features photos taken during a recent trip that ONE led to Ghana and Sierra Leone with Cindy McCain and Connie Britton, along with seven other prominent women, including Dana Perino, a former White House Press Secretary and Maureen Orth, an award-winning journalist and Vanity Fair Special Correspondent. On that trip, the ONE group had the privilege to join a leading poverty-fighting organization, CARE, in Sierra Leone where the entire group was able to come together and share how they could bring their experiences and professional expertise to the movement against extreme poverty and preventable disease.

Throughout their travels, the delegation from ONE witnessed how women are a good investment and critical to making their countries better places to live. They met women who are working tirelessly to provide their families with education, access to better health care, and improving economic opportunity in their local economies. They saw that investment in women is not just smart, it’s necessary to successful, sustainable development.

As members of Congress and their staff conduct daily business this week, they will encounter the faces of women who are leading the fight against extreme poverty. This exhibit will amplify your advocacy efforts in your local district and community, so please come by if you live in the area to see it for yourselves. Otherwise, you can visit www.one.org/women to see what more you can do.

Key excerpt below, full piece here.

Being a woman in the developing world means you have the potential to improve lives for your family and your neighbors. When mothers are alive, healthy and educated, their children have a better chance of surviving past age 5 and going on to school. And women who earn an income and participate in politics are more likely to invest in their families and advocate for issues such as better health care and education. Poor health often impedes such progress.

Perhaps most tragically, motherhood remains one of the world’s most dangerous endeavors: One in every 22 African mothers dies in childbirth, more than 200 times the rate in the United States. In Sierra Leone, it’s 1 in 8. There, I learned about a crippling condition called vaginal fistula. Fistulas can develop during prolonged labor, damaging tissue around the bladder and the rectum. Women are then unable to control their bladders and suffer horrible skin diseases. As a result, many become social outcasts, living deeply depressed lives.

But the Aberdeen West Africa Fistula Centre is one facility that provides help. Women are operated on, given new clothing and, best of all, rest for three weeks: — One clinic rule is that the women do not have to lift a finger. Some never want to leave.

The hardest part of returning from Africa is pinpointing what I can do to help improve the lives of the women I met. I believe that, as an American woman, I can help bring opportunity to women in the developing world by spreading their stories and urging our country’s lawmakers to make smart investments — like those undertaken by the women in Ghana. From what I have seen, our aid money is being well-spent. They stretch every dollar, spending in innovative ways.

That’s why I repeatedly return to Africa, and why I am participating in Women ONE2ONE with the ONE Campaign. As women, we are leaders, connectors and communicators in our own families and communities. We have seen the impact that one woman can have, and we are best equipped to help bring the change that women across the world need.

But when she arrived at the hospital, she was dangerously ill with pneumonia and tuberculosis, diseases that kill millions of children every year in the developing world. Jeneba’s story is an example of how maternal and child health care programs, supported in part by the United States, are changing the landscape in places where health care has been so perilously unavailable.

Today is International Women’s Day, and I hope you’ll celebrate by watching Jeneba’s story and learning how you can help make sure millions of children just like her have access to basic health care:

I took this trip to Sierra Leone with ONE to help kick off their new Women ONE2ONE initiative, which is all about sharing stories and making connections across great distances to empower women around the world. I was touched by Jeneba’s story, but I was also inspired by the work of so many other women I met around her – her mother, nurses, doctors, and others who are building communities and breaking cycles of poverty. By telling their stories to our friends, families and even the people who write laws in Washington, we can affect great change and give children in some of the poorest countries in the world opportunities as big as Jeneba’s smile.

Please watch our video and learn what you can do to help.

Thank you,

Connie Britton