Fatumata is from Virginia, Liberia, a community about 45 minutes outside the Liberian capital of Monrovia. During her first trip to the United States, Fatumata had the opportunity to explore one of the biggest cities in the world and described New York City on her first day as ‘very exciting and different!’

Fatumata on the Staten Island Ferry

WCI is leading a countrywide program for the political and economic empowerment of rural women in every county throughout Liberia. To promote a sustained living for the participants, WCI supports a country cloth initiative in which they lead workshops that train Liberian women on product development and business strategies. As part of this country cloth program, WCI sponsored Fatumata to attend this week long training course run by Aid to Artisans. The five day training course included sessions that focused on producing crafts, marketing, and exporting goods in order to develop successful business and to export skills for traditional artisans on the global market.  Topics included ‘green’ market strategies, creating a strategy for product development, costing and pricing for profit, and techniques to enter new markets.

In addition to the trainings, Fatumata had the opportunity to meet and talk with buyers to understand what kind of products the US market is looking for and how Liberian women can adapt their crafts to generate interest from outside markets.  At the end of the week, Fatumata declared with a great smile, ‘I learned about the need for finished goods and high quality products!’ More than a simple training, the experience gave her new ideas and relationships for future potential sales and product development.

When she returns home, Fatumata will travel to five different country cloth collectives throughout Liberia to train weavers and business women on market strategies and how to be more productive and increase profits. WCI is looking forward to updates on how Fatumata has shared her economic empowerment with other Liberian women.

Country cloth is a hand made cloth weaved by setting up looms or wrapping thread around trees to create long strips of striped fabric.  The production of this cloth is time consuming and requires skilled artisans.  In a post conflict context, too few nationals have the capacity to pay the price needed to make this material profitable. For this reason, WCI is working to improve the efficiency of country cloth production in order to bring the price to a level that Liberians can afford. Additionally, this process improves the quality of the material and increases the variety of country cloth products, making them more marketable for international buyers.

To do this, WCI is working in Mama Tomeh Village—named after the leader whose vision for a country cloth collective, WCI is making a reality.  During and after the war Mama Tomeh was an advocate for peace and stability and is now the president of Liberian Traditional Women for Peace.  To build up her community after the war, Mama Tomeh relied on the skills she learned making cloth while growing up in Lofa county.  She saw that in sharing her skills she could ensure that this cloth making tradition is carried on while also providing income to fellow women in the community.

With strong leadership, a vision for growth and a commitment to work together, Mama Tomeh village was the perfect starting point for WCI’s Country Cloth project.   Here, WCI conducted interactive workshops on product development, marketing, business strategy and financial management.  Then, based on a community proposal and plan for the growth of their country cloth program, WCI provided the community with a small grant to purchase thread in bulk and a design machine to create finished products with the cloth.

The immediate results have been a success. With raw materials in bulk and a streamlined process to execute intricate designs, the village has been able to collectively produce large quantities of country cloth in a shorter time period.  So far, they have been able to produce large orders (The office of Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf recently ordered  500 lapas in Liberian colors) and the group even has enough surplus cloth to create finished products such as shirts and dresses to put on display.

With new opportunities the once modest country cloth collective with two looms and no capacity to make finished products is now transformed.  Two months since WCI’s initial donation and business training, the group employs 16 weavers in Monserato County and at least another 20 in Lofa County.  It has seven looms and has partnered with four skilled tailors to create finished products on site.   For Mama Tomeh, this is the beginning of a larger goal for women’s income generation and for the art form as a whole.  “We will have a ‘country cloth factory’ someday, a place where the women can work and sell their cloth.  I know it.”  We at WCI are already convinced and will work with Mama Tomeh village and other collectives like it to make their vision for country cloth a reality.

Following the production of Ruined this past Wednesday by the Philadelphia Theatre Company, WCI’s Executive Director Kerri Kennedy was invited to serve as a guest panelist in an audience discussion based on the issues touched upon by the play, including women in conflict zones and the role of women in post-conflict reconstruction.

The play Ruined is based on interviews conducted by its author, Lynn Nottage, with female refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who fled to Uganda during the country’s prolonged conflict. The production revolves around the lives of the employees and customers of a brothel located in the DRC, which Nottage describes as a country “where the unspeakable has become commonplace.”

The DRC has been in a state of prolonged conflict for roughly 15 years, with over 5.4 million deaths reported during that time. The causes of the conflict are complex, as it began with the influx of both refugees and rebel forces into the DRC in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. This instability was furthered by a separate conflict in Uganda and the popularity of informal militias in the region, where employment opportunities are minimal and militias often turn to looting. These conflicts have only been exacerbated by the rich resources of the DRC, which include diamonds, gold, coltan, and cobalt. The negligible judicial institutions in the DRC are unable to enforce property rights, resulting in continued conflict between militia groups, some supported by sympathetic foreign governments, over control of mining operations.

Based on her extensive experience in conflict zones around the world, Kerri Kennedy felt that the play’s portrayal of the DRC was “a very accurate illustration of the hardship, hope, and complexities of life in a protracted conflict zone.” The conflict in the Congo has been exceptionally brutal due to the pervasiveness of sexual violence, particularly the use of rape as a weapon of war. The United Nations reported that over 200,000 women have been raped thus far in the Congo, with a recent study declaring that over 48 women are still raped every hour. The empowerment of women is a crucial part of rebuilding a post-conflict society, not only because women are often left alone to support their families following the death of their spouses in conflict, but also because of the physical and psychological suffering caused by the use of sexual violence throughout the conflicts.

Ruined does an incredible job of humanizing the statistics and descriptions of conflict zones that are so often quoted in newspaper articles and scholarly journals but do little to make their readers understand the reality of life for the people of the Congo today. The play has increased awareness of the DRC’s conflict and of the use of rape as a weapon, but this awareness is merely a first step in the process of bringing an end to the violence and suffering inflicted on women in the region.

Kerri recommended that audience members (and interested readers!) who want to get involved in the process to bring peace to the Congo and empower the women of the region contact representatives both in government, such as your U.S. Representative, and in the industries that continue to purchase conflict minerals from the region. Most of the DRC’s resources are smuggled across its borders and exported from a neighboring country, making it difficult to trace their origins and leaving the Congo’s economy stagnant and its residents in desperate poverty. Experts have recommended that these industries, such as cell phone manufacturers, formulate their own versions of the Kimberly Process, which certifies diamonds as “conflict-free” and was brought about to stop the trafficking of blood diamonds from Sierra Leone, to certify the minerals in their supply-chains as conflict-free. More information on conflict minerals in the DRC can be found on War Child’s website.

WCI does not currently operate any programs based directly in the DRC, but our awareness campaign to stop gender-based violence in Liberia following its 14-year civil conflict touches on many of the same issues. Check out our Liberia page to learn more about these initiatives. If you’re interested in getting involved in an advocacy campaign related to the Congo, check out Breaking the Silence.

If you’d like to see Ruined yourself, it will be playing now through June 12^th at the Philadelphia Theatre Company; tickets are available on their website.

GALS students listen intently to their Skype call with Liberian women

Students in WCI’s GALS program recently had the pleasure of Skyping with a few female counterparts in Liberia.

Lucy was one of the women in that call. After the call, she was so inspired from hearing other people’s stories that she wanted to share her own. Lucy is one of many women in Liberia who took her own initiative, seizing opportunities in her own community, to make a better life for herself. She currently works at IREX, an international non-profit organization also active in promoting leadership in Liberia. Below are excerpts from her own story in her own words:

Well, about knowing me, I am Lucy, a single mother with two children; a boy and a girl. I am 36-37 years old and have not gone to school. Before I came to IREX I was very desperate for a change in my life and worried about my children’s future. But as an uneducated woman what could I do? So I vowed that I would do anything to make money, but not prostitution nor anything that will take away life. So I began going from house to house to wash dirty clothes for people, when I came across a pastor and his wife who hired me to wash once every weekend. At the same time during the week, I began selling used cloths going from bank to bank, that is I would buy retail from those buying wholesale since I could not afford to buy wholesale. This was not easy for me…

Then in IREX I met Tilly, she is just one of the few in a million people who really make a difference. Tilly is a mother, understanding, caring, loving, sensitive and above all she does common things in an uncommon way. I was hired as a cleaner, but before I knew it she changed me to a Office Assistant, then one day she ask me if I would like to know how to use the computer and I said yes. Before I knew it she sent me to one of the well known computer schools in Liberia (Cheale Vocational Training Institute) where I learned about Windows, MS word and the Internet… since then things have never been the same. Now I am useful to myself and the office. I am presently going to a night school in 4th grade were I am learning so much. I love social studies.

Note: education is sweet, it is powerful, give it to your children, get the best of it because it can never be taken away from you!

I love talking to people like me, because I believe there’s always another way to succeed.

With love,

Lucy

On Saturday, April 30, as part of their global awareness education, the students in WCI’s GALS program had the great privilege of Skyping with young Liberian women from our Liberia office!

We’ve asked one participant from Liberia, Office Assistant, Jojo, and three GALS girls from our Philadelphia office, high school students Helena, Simone and Tion, to share what they learned from the Skype call. Following is the written and video responses from participants:

1) Were you nervous about the Skype call? How did that change through the course of the call?

Helena and Simone: I think that our group was scared to ask the girls questions. But, people started to get more comfortable once [our Liberian counterparts] started to ask us questions.

Jojo: Before the call I was feeling nervous.  It was my first time using Skype.  It makes it easier because you can see the people and it is easier to interact.

2) What was your favorite part of the experience?

Helena and Simone: Our favorite part was when we found out that we had something in common with them. They listen to the same music we listen to.

Jojo: I loved talking with the girls.  It was my first time interacting with young girls from the United States. When we were walking home Christine said that she loves Skype.  It is easy and doesn’t cost much money.  She wants to use Skype all the time now.

Students in GALS Skyping with WCI Liberia Staff

3)  What did you learn through the experience?

Helena and Simone: We were surprised that they did not know who Michael Jackson was but that they know the rapper Nicki Minaj.

Jojo:I learned that they care about abuse and women. I learned that we like the same movies and music.

4) Do you think this is a valuable activity for young girls?

Helena and Simone: We do think this is a valuable activity because it gives young girls a chance to be aware of what’s going on in different parts of the world.

5) Is there anything you wanted to tell the Liberian girls during the call that you didn’t get a chance to?

Helena and Simone: We would like to tell them thank you for sharing information with us. Thank you for enlightening us.

6) Additional comments?

Jojo: I would like to be friends with the girl on Facebook so we can communicate.

Afghan women MPs actively participate in WCI Parliamentary Strengthening Workshop, 2011

The warm and receptive atmosphere of the trainings helped create a relationship of openness and trust between the women MPs and WCI. In addition to our fruitful meetings and training sessions, the WCI team had the opportunity to speak at length with many of the women members about their experiences as elected officials and their professional and personal histories. These discussions often also included the challenges women faced under the Mujahedeen, Taliban and the difficulties they continue to face in the ongoing conflict.

For example, an MP from the Maidan Wardak province told us about how she secured admission to Kabul schools for forty students from her region. As a result, these students were immediately arrested and released months later only as a result of the MP’s personal perseverance. The only nomadic woman MP in parliament told us about how she campaigned for mobile health clinics and schools for her constituents and their children. These are just a few stories; countless other women MPs have secretly organized, taught children, provided health care and formed women’s NGOs against all odds and at an enormous risk to themselves and their families.

At the very end of the five-day training, one of the MPs, the Honorable Perwin Sadat, began to sing “We Shall Overcome.” By the end of her final verse other women and our team had joined in singing, feeling the power in each line and the relevance of the words in their lives and struggles. The entire group was tearful due both to the historical significance of the song in the United States’ Civil Rights Movement and the current socio-political conditions in Afghanistan as they relate to women. Just as with the Civil Rights Movement, the courageous women with whom we spoke shared a common thread of resistance, resilience and resourcefulness.

The WCI team consisted of Program Manager, Nasrin Rafiq, Program Officer, Nickie Séne, and two WCI senior consultant trainers, Ambassador Cynthia Schneider and Ambassador Meryl Frank. Major topics of the training included: leadership, coalition and consensus building, negotiation and diplomacy, inter-gender communication, media relations, public speaking, arenas for raising gender issues, gender mainstreaming, and establishing a Women’s Caucus.

Thank you to everyone involved both from the U.S. and Afghanistan for sharing your time and stories with us.

In her testimony, which follows below, Marjorie defined for the Committee WCI’s foundational model, where we work both from the bottom up, at the grassroots level, such as with rural market women in post-conflict, emerging democracies and from the top down, with women who have recently been elected to positions of power. WCI also handed the Committee a detailed report of our actions worldwide, with a special description of our newly opened headquarters in Liberia and the transformative work our program officers accomplish there every day.

Marjorie Testifying before the Subcommittee

The vast majority of the American public believes that 20% of the federal budget is dedicated to foreign aid and that this amount should be reduced to 10%. In reality, we know that the proportion of spending dedicated to foreign aid is actually only 1% of the annual US budget. With proposed cuts to foreign spending in the current budget cuts, that number could be reduced even further, leaving organizations such as USAID, which heavily supports WCI’s international work, to make tough decisions about which programs to remove due to lack of funding.

It is for this very reason that it is imperative that organizations such as Women’s Campaign International, share tangible markers of their success with community members, elected officials, supporters and detractors. Through the use of solid evidence, we as a society can more effectively draw conclusions about the efficacy and necessity of foreign aid.

Please read Marjorie’s congressional testimony below for examples of these tangible markers in WCI’s work across the world.

House Committee of Appropriations:
Subcommittee of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs

Marjorie Margolies President
Women’s Campaign International
Testimony FY 2012

Madam Chairwoman and distinguished Members of the Committee: Thank you for allowing me to speak today before the subcommittee. I am here on behalf of Women’s Campaign International, an organization that was founded in 1998.

Following my short stay on the hill, I was appointed to be the Director of the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China. Here, we saw, in action, what happens when women leaders come together and demand their seat at the decision making table. It was out of this conference that Women’s Campaign International was born –to support women’s participation and to create a platform from which their voices could be heard.

Since this conference, the importance of women’s participation has been cited by the United Nations, the World Bank, and USAID. These organizations emphasize the connection between the economic and political empowerment of women and social change. Ban-ki Moon stated that, “Women must be full partners in development, so they can lift themselves and their communities out of poverty.” Currently, however, that full partnership has yet to be realized. Women perform 66 percent of the world’s work, produce 50 percent of the food, but earn 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent of the property. Women are 51% of the population, but only account for 19% of seats in national government. Of the 500 largest corporations in the world, only 13 have a female chief executive officer. It has been shown that with the money they do get, women are more likely to invest it in their families and communities. With what decision making power they have, women are more likely to direct funds towards social programming, health, education and peace building. This is and has been the cornerstone of this movement and this is the foundation of WCI’s work.

Since its founding, WCI has worked in 2 dozen countries around the world to promote women’s participation in public advocacy, market and political processes. WCI’s impact can best be shown through its stories.

Let me tell you about Her Excellency Callista Mutharika. We first met her as a parliamentary hopeful at our campaign skills training in Malawi in 2003. Callista, along with 26 other trainees got elected to parliament that year, doubling the number of women in Malawian parliament. Due to her strong work ethic and charisma Callista was eventually appointed to the Presidential Cabinet. In office, Callista and her female colleagues were a force. WCI worked with these newly-elected women members to come together, across party lines, to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS in Malawi. They led by example and made it publicly known that they would be tested for HIV. Their ability to address the issue as a unified group, not only reduced the stigma of getting tested for HIV/AIDS, but also increased their visibility as agents of change and politicians who kept their campaign promises.

Since her time in Parliament Callista has taken on a new role in leading the country of Malawi as its First Lady. Here, Callista decided to use this platform in the most effective way she knew—advocating for women’s leadership, safe motherhood, health care for women and girls, prevention of HIV/AIDS and Malaria, and promoting girls’ education. She is now playing a significant role in WCI’s First Ladies Strategic Initiative, a program helping to build the capacity of the Offices of First Ladies in Africa.

WCI is also committed to supporting sustainable community based development. Currently, in Liberia, we support a national network of rural women’s groups. These groups are often overlooked by economists, politicians and humanitarian workers. However, they are a strong force—together, they worked to elect the first female head of state in Africa—and together, they have established the beginnings of strong community organizations—formed to make their own change in their own communities. It is from here that WCI works with these groups. WCI’s approach is simple—build on the existing skills and structures that are in place and provide strategic support to make sustainable community programs.

Take, for example, the agriculture collective in Beatoe a small village in Gbarpolu County, Liberia. As a group, these farmers came together to plant 30 acres of cassava. What they didn’t have were plans to distribute the profits from the farm, a system to make collective decisions or a plan of how to best price and sell their goods. This is where WCI came in. We worked with them to choose a value added tool to increase the overall profit they make as a group. Over the next 2 years, WCI will work with this group as they create and implement a plan to maintain the tool, manage the profits and ensure that the benefits reach all members of the group in a fair and transparent manner.

As you can see, our programs, like the needs of women around the world, are diverse. They range from value added agriculture to healthcare to economic empowerment and financial literacy. We work with members of parliament and First Ladies. We work with rural farmers and market women. What unites all of our projects is a focus on women’s leadership, confidence building and the ability of women to work together to collectively overcome the obstacles that they face in a sustainable way, long after our programs are over.

10×10 Executive Director, Holly Gordon, and Executive Producer, Tom Yellin, will introduce the 10×10 project to the Philadelphia community on Thursday May 19.

Marjorie Margolies will present as the evening’s featured guest speaker.

10×10 is a groundbreaking film, a global social action campaign and an extraordinary opportunity: Investing today in adolescent girls living in the developing world creates a ripple effect that transforms families, communities and entire countries for generations. By harnessing the power of media and forging relationships with forward-thinking, action-oriented nonprofit and corporate partners, 10×10 brings together a global community with a common purpose— to remake the future.

10×10 affects change three ways: (1) by driving resources to girl-focused programs already operating on the ground that are proven models for change; (2) by penetrating the public consciousness and creating a vast grassroots network; and (3) by using that groundswell of support to provoke governmental, institutional and policy changes that empower adolescent girls, the world’s single most powerful untapped resource.

The U.S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau hosts an half-day event for young women and girls, on Monday April 25, 2011, at the Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia.

Karen Doyle presents WCI's Youth Leadership Program

WCI President and Founder Marjorie Margolies will speak. Other invited  women leaders include:

• Sara Manzano-Díaz, Director of the U.S Department of Labor Women’s Bureau
• Elva Bankins, Executive Vice President Corporate Services for OI Partners
• Gennifer Brooke Miller, Founder of Healthy Textures LLC
• Helen Gym, Founder of parents United for Public Education
• Stephanie Gambone, Vice President, Business Partnerships for the Philadelphia Youth Network
• Lydia Hernández Vėlez, Deputy Managing Director for Aging City of Philadelphia
• Amaris Hernandez, Vice President of the National Conference of Puerto Rican Women
• Vicki Curtis, Disabled Veterans Outreach Specialist for the Pennsylvania Department of Labor

The event is free and open to the public, but guests are encouraged to bring along a young, female mentee between the ages of 14 and 22.

Register here.

On April 4, 2011 the WCI team attended UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s lecture at The University of Pennsylvania. The talk was the kickoff event for the Fifth Annual Global Colloquium of University Presidents and was entitled: “Empowering Women to Change the World: What Universities and the UN Can Do.”

In his speech, the Secretary-General reminded the audience of the importance of promoting women’s development worldwide, and also discussed the role of academics and students in that process. While sitting in the balcony in awe of the distinguished company around me, the message was surprisingly familiar, reminiscent of Michelle Bachelet’s speech to commemorate the launch of UN Women and to celebrate, and draw a road map for, continued progress towards the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. But the message resonated as familiar, I realized, because under the Secretary-General’s leadership during the past five years, much has been done to make this message familiar. The UN’s strategy has transformed this once simple message regarding women’s empowerment into a familiar, less refutable given.

Through the efforts of the UN, NGOs, private firms, and political leaders worldwide, we are much closer to achieving this goal. In fact, in the last five years, the number of women in top leadership positions at the UN has risen to 40%. Over one-third of senior posts at the UN are now held by women. The Secretary General emphasized that these are posts that even 10 years ago were seen as too aggressive, too dangerous to be held by women.

It is thanks in part to the steadfast commitment of the UN to women’s rights and gender equality that we are at a point where some of us may be able to stop asking why women’s empowerment is important and start asking how we can help. At the same time, we cannot forget that while some of us sitting in the audience may think one way about women’s rights, there are billions of people who are yet to be convinced. For example, Mr. Ban pointed out that even in university settings, where women participate in higher numbers than men, women are still under-represented in the science and technology sectors and at the professorial level in general.

Working to correct such imbalances is not only good for women, but Mr. Ban implied that it is also good for democracy. Throughout his talk, the Secretary-General frequently referred back to the Egyptian and Tunisian protests, ostensibly an odd move given that he was speaking to University presidents about the role of the academy in promoting women’s leadership. Little by little, however, it became clear that Mr. Ban was, implicitly, hinting at the fact that we cannot see democracies emerge in any part of the world if women are not considered full, participating members of their communities. Promoting women’s leadership, therefore, will promote the spread of human rights, equality, dignity and democracy worldwide.

Mr. Ban ended his talk by once again applauding the advances women have made over the past century, lauding their tenacity in fighting for increased opportunities. But, he urged, it is not enough to just get a job. Instead, women need to be serving in leadership positions, in government or NGOs, in education. In any field in which they work, women must strive to be decision makers.

Women’s Campaign International, believing in this creed, works with women worldwide to equip them with the skills they need to become decision makers. WCI President, Marjorie Margolies, often says, “In helping to support women leaders, we can’t really say it’s going to make things better or worse, but we can confidently say it will make a difference.” It is this difference that we have seen over and over again in the twelve years WCI has been in operation: women emerging to make decisions that include their needs, and the needs of their children, to shape healthier and more fulfilling societies.