If you know anything about medicine, you may of heard about pioneers such as Louis Pasteur (developed germ theory) or Alexander Fleming (discovered penicillin). But what about the women who also laid the foundations for modern medicine? Meet 8 remarkable women who pushed the frontiers of science. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689 – 1762) Introduced smallpox inoculation Lady Mary Wortley Montagu defied convention by introducing smallpox inoculation into Western medicine. While visiting the Ottoman Empire, she learnt about Turkish customs and witnessed...
In Part 1 of a two-part report on the informal banks that help women secure financial stability, Women’s Advancement Deeply looks at a savings group in Kenya that grants independence to the women who join it.  Orge Konchora always wanted her children to go to school, but her husband could not raise all the fees from his small salary as a driver, and she knew she had to help out. Although the family also had some livestock, the animals were owned...
There are lots of barriers standing between girls and education. School fees, uniforms, food and water, and safe travel conditions all play a role in whether a girl can go to school. But there’s another crucial factor that often gets overlooked: access to period products. Women and girls living in poverty struggle to afford menstrual products. As a result, young girls often miss school during their periods. Some even resort to creating makeshift pads out of torn rags and old...
This story was originally reported by Alina Paul-Bossuet for the Thomson Reuters Foundation and International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). The United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change report (October 2018) highlights worsening food shortages as one of the key impacts of global warming. Tackling the monumental challenges set out in the report may seem like a mountain to climb, given the policy changes and rapid government action required. Yet, on her 4-acre farm on the foothills of Mount Kenya in Embu county,...
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is among the top 5 most dangerous places to be born in the world: one in every fourteen children will die before reaching the age of one. Glorie Sibamona is hoping that her newborn baby girl will beat those odds. And thanks to the innovative financing model of the Global Financing Facility (GFF), her chances are improving. The GFF was set up in 2015 to increase funding to improve maternal and child health and end...
In this series, we’re introducing you to strong and savvy female entrepreneurs from Ethiopia who have partnered with social enterprise and lifestyle brand ABLE. Semhal Guesh grew up in Ethiopia hearing a phrase many young girls her age did not: “You can do whatever you want.” Now 27 years old, it’s no coincidence that Semhal has become a designer, architect, and entrepreneur. She now runs Kabana, a leather production company in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital and largest city, and through her...
What does your future hold? University, your own business, fame and fortune? Whatever your hopes, you will not have imagined a future in which you got married off as a child, were denied an education, or infected with HIV by a husband that’s twice your age. But this is the reality for millions of girls living in extreme poverty. And it’s time to call it out for what it is: Sexist. Nowhere on earth do girls and women have the...
Written by Jamie Drummond, ONE’s Co-Founder. Firstly – apologies! Open letters like this can be self-important and irritating, but they can also be a helpful way of driving a set of specific questions upon disparate gatherings – like Davos or UNGA – with the hope of focussing debate and driving towards answers. And given the development sector’s been hit by “UNGA fever” again – here goes. A few years ago, many of us, across the public, private and non-profit sectors, worked together...