Foundation SCA's 1 Year Anniversary

Things have been so hectic planning for our Inaugural Cocktail Benefit on November 10, (see http://foundationsca.org/index.asp?pageid=51 for more info) that I forgot to mention it was our 1 year anniversary of receiving our 501 (c ) 3 on Tuesday October 27! Happy Anniversary to us. Foundation SCA has come a long way, and we have all learned so much in the short time we have been involved with the foundation.

Fundraising this year has been a challenge, but since Lourdes and myself were hired in February of 2009, we have been able to raise 24% of the necessary funding to cover our program budget. Every last penny of these donations has already been given to our programs. We funded a wonderful seminar on the importance of family in Russia, gave 2 girls from Lexington College scholarships, and were able to give partial funding to our Professional Training Center in Cameroon. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of you who have had faith in our work and had the courage to support our programs. I can testify first hand that your money is being put to good use and our programs really are changing the lives of young women.

This means we have raised 9% of what we need for operating expenses, our program budget, and our desired endowment fund. We still have some work to do, but hopefully with our continued efforts and a successful Benefit on November 10, we will be a few steps closer to our 2009 goals.

I cannot express adequately in words what a worthy investment I know these programs are. I believe it will take some time for others to recognize this, but I am confident that they will and they too will be excited about making an investment in the lives of women around the world.

Gender Gap Report 2009

"Women and girls make up one half of the human resources available to the world and it will be imperative that they are educated, empowered and integrated for a rapid economic recovery"

Saadia Zahihi, Director of Head Constituents, World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Report came out yesterday. The Index benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, political, education- and health based criteria, and provides country rankings that allow for effective comparisons across regions and income groups, and over time.

The Global Gender Gap Index ranks countries according to their proximity to gender equality rather than to women’s empowerment. Our aim is to focus on whether the gap between women and men in the chosen variables has declined, rather than whether women are “winning” the “battle of the sexes”. Hence, the Index rewards countries that reach the point where outcomes for women equal those for men, but it neither rewards nor penalizes cases in which women are outperforming men in particular variables.

134 countries were ranked. Both South Africa and Switzerland have made significant improvements from 2008. Cameroon ranks 118th, Kenya ranks 98th, Slovenia ranks 52nd, Russia ranks 51st, and Poland ranks 50th.

check out the full report: http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gendergap/report2009.pdf

Missing Funds for Internally Displaced Kenyans

There has been a lot in the news lately about the IDPs in Kenya. Most of the people living in the Farm Camp Foundation SCA is supporting never received government funding to try and rebuild their lives. This is the main reason why many are still living in tents.

http://www.afrol.com/articles/34520

Nakuru

Ironic... the picture at the top of this article was taken at the same IDP camp I visited this summer in Nakuru, Kenya and the one SCA is trying to raise money for in 2010. I am so happy awareness is slowly starting about the millions of displaced in Africa!

http://www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/60167/2009/09/19-104857-1.htm

Internally Displaced Persons in Africa

I thought this Article was rather timely considering Foundation SCA has recently decided to take on fundraising to send 20 girls in a camp for Internally Displaced Persons to school. This issue is one of the many serious problems that has yet to find a sound solution.

African Union Summit tackles internally displaced for the first time

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4813101,00.html?maca=en-en_nr-1893-xml-atom

College Scholarships for Women

SCHOLARSHIP BENEFIT

Lexington College will host its Building Scholarships for Service annual benefit dinner on Monday, Nov. 2, at the Chicago Marriott, 625 S. Ashland Ave. The event will honor Jan Fields, executive vice president and chief operating officer of McDonald’s USA. Proceeds go toward scholarship funds for women earning a degree in hospitality management from Lexington. Call (312) 226-6294, ext. 224.

Women and the Financial Crisis

Check out this interesting report by The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) on the repercussions the financial crisis is having/going to have on women:

The Global Financial Crisis
Could investing in women help prevent the next one?

Crises affect women and men differently, and the current global financial crisis is no exception. The differential impact will vary across countries, but is expected to hit women harder in developed and developing countries alike due to a combination of factors. This is bad news for poor families, many of which are headed by women. Even in poor, two-parent households, women are usually the primary caregivers of children, and any additional resources available to them are more likely to benefit children than resources controlled by men.[1]

Women around the world have higher rates of unemployment and poverty and smaller retirement and pension funds than men. These factors mean that households headed by women shave less of a buffer when crises strike.[2] The greater longevity of women leaves them especially vulnerable to impoverishment in old age. And in difficult financial times, families are less able or willing to help an elderly parent as much as they would otherwise.

In many developing countries, women tend to be concentrated in export manufacturing industries, meaning their jobs are among the first to go when global demand for goods is down. Because jobs in education, health and social services are predominantly held by women. The public sector budget cuts can also lead to a disproportionate increase in female joblessness.[3] In some countries, gender norms are such that women are fired before men because a man's job is seen as more important.

Beyond its direct negative effects on incomes and livelihoods, the disproportionate impact of the global economic crisis on women is also expected to affect entire families and to put recent development gains at risk. Policy responses that focus specifically on protecting women’s jobs and social programmes will shield the greatest number of people from the impact of the crisis.

Facts, Figures and Trends

Nature of the crisis

According to the International Labour Organization, the global economic crisis is deepening and experts expect a prolonged labour market recession.[4] More specifically:

• At the global level, after four years of progress, the number of unemployed increased in 2008 by 14 million. Global unemployment levels could rise to 30 million workers in 2009, and to more than 50 million if the situation continues to deteriorate.
• Export-oriented sectors, which in many developing countries are major providers of formal jobs, especially for women, face rapidly shrinking world markets. Large numbers of people working in these sectors are expected to lose their jobs entirely or to see their hours and wages cut.[5]
• Past financial crises show that it takes the labour market four to five years to rebound after economic recovery, which is not expected before the end of 2009.[6]
• The economic slowdown, which is projected to be most severe in developed countries, is anticipated to have ripple effects on middle- and low-income countries via declines in the demand for manufactured exports, plummeting tourism expenditures and a drop in foreign direct investment.
• The drop in remittances from family members living and working in developed economies will hurt many developing countries[7] and may also lead to return migration. Labour markets in countries of origin will be less likely to absorb the returnees, even some who have developed useful new skill sets.
• Decreases in aid due to the downturn in developing countries has a large negative impact. In Africa, for example, more than 50 per cent of the total public health spending comes from international aid. Important development initiatives like the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDs, Tuberculosis, and Malaria already are facing funding shortfalls.

Effects of the crisis on women

^· The impact of job losses on men’s and women’s well-being differ among countries but men are generally better positioned to weather the crisis because they have higher paying jobs, more assets, more wealth, and their jobs are more likely to offer benefits and be covered by unemployment insurance.

^· Women are more likely than men to be under-employed or employed in the informal sector, with limited social safety nets. Exacerbating all these factors is the reality that most women have less access to and control over economic and financial resources than men.[8]

· Migrant women, especially those who are undocumented, are at higher risk of exploitation than men if they lose their jobs.

• Economic crises exacerbate pressures on women to remain in abusive relationships, migrate for work or enter into the sex trade and other risky professions.[9]

· The World Bank has identified 33 developing countries where women and girls in poor households are particularly vulnerable to the effects of the global economic and food crises.[10] In 15 of these countries, mostly in Africa, the situation is especially precarious. These countries already are characterized by limited educational opportunities for girls and by high infant and child deaths.[11]

• In developing countries in which women are concentrated in export manufacturing industries (such as in Latin America and Asia), or in tourism (the Caribbean), the effects on women are expected to be greater than for men. This is particularly worrisome in regions such as the Caribbean, where a large percentage of households are headed by women.

· The largest impact could be in the Asia-Pacific region, which has one of the highest ratios of women of working age. And, among working women, about 65 per cent are in vulnerable employment, largely in the region’s informal sector. Many of them have no benefits such as maternity leave and pensions or job security, and thus risk falling into poverty in economic downturns.[12]

· When family resources become scarce, education for girls may be seen as a luxury. When household incomes decline, girls are more likely to be withdrawn from school and to take on more work responsibilities than boys.[13]

Impact on development

· Decreased welfare of poor households. The loss of women’s income usually has greater negative implications for the welfare of poor households than an equivalent loss of men’s income because of both the contributions women make to current household income and their ‘preference’ for investing scarce resources in their children’s health and well-being. In Bangladesh, Brazil, Kenya and South Africa, evidence shows that children’s welfare (nutritional status, schooling attendance) in poor households improves more when income is handled by women rather than men.[14]

· Infant mortality. In countries that already had high child mortality rates before the crisis, the fall in household incomes could further increase infant and child deaths, with disproportionate effects on women and girls. One estimate suggests that the result of the financial shock will be the additional deaths of at least 200,000 babies per year between 2009 to 2015 -- or more than 1.4 million infant deaths, if the crisis persists. The majority of deaths are likely to be girls.[15]

· Increased pregnancy risks. Lower spending on public health information and services puts expectant mothers at risk, especially in countries where maternal death and disability are already high. Having more children is one strategy to cope with lower survival rates, but this multiplies mothers’ risks of pregnancy-related death and disability.[16]

· Increased violence against women. Women and girls are often exposed to a greater risk of violence in times of hardship, and their economic and social rights may be jeopardized. Earlier this year, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said, “we have seen recent media reports of increasing numbers of women in the sex industry and an increasing number of domestic violence incidents against women linked to the financial crisis”.[17]

· Decreased school enrolment. Educational gender gaps in poor countries are likely to widen as girls are pulled out of school as households cope with declining household income.[18]

· Decreased employment and small business activity. The crisis is expected to reduce women’s income in developing countries as a result of losses in employment in export-oriented industries, tightened micro-finance lending and declines in remittances. Women are also affected by the diminished availability of credit worldwide because women constitute the majority of clients of small community-based lending institutions. As credit tightens, their earnings from small businesses will decline, especially in places such as Latin America, where microfinance institutions obtain a significant portion of their lending from commercial institutions rather than grants. Lastly, household incomes in developing countries will decline as remittances diminish. World Bank projections show that a decline in the growth of remittances had already begun in 2008 in a majority of countries where remittances are a significant portion of families’ income.[19] Women themselves often send home a significant portion of their earnings to their extended families, creating a wide distribution of benefits.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE

· Ensure that stimulus packages and other policy responses are gender-equitable. Past experiences have shown that policy responses to financial crises have disproportionately disadvantaged women. It is critical to recognize gender equality as a fundamental human right and an issue of social justice essential for economic growth, poverty reduction, environmental sustainability and development effectiveness.[20] Stimulus packages should ensure that spending is gender-equitable in job creation and does not focus only on physical infrastructure projects and other sectors that overwhelmingly employ men over women.[21]

· Maintain and expand gains in gender equality by continuing to emphasize girls’ education and universal access to reproductive health care, including family planning. Much progress has also been made to improve women’s positions in the household, increase their negotiating power and reduce violence and harmful traditional practices. These gains must be maintained or recovery from the financial crisis will take much longer.

· Invest in women’s economic empowerment. It pays – both in terms of mitigating current hardships and preventing future ones.[22]

• Invest in health and social services. Allocating funding for social infrastructure investment in areas such as public health, education, child care, and other social services, has two benefits. First, it generates jobs for women since women are heavily represented in those occupations. Second, directing funding to activities that help women with their family life – e.g., child care services, contraception, and school feeding programmes – can soften some of the negative effects of the crisis for entire families. The suggested expenditures on the social infrastructure, aside from cushioning women and children, have the added effect of contributing to long-term health of the economy by raising productivity. [23]

ICPD/MDGs

At the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, 179 countries agreed that empowering women and promoting access to education and health care were essential for sustained, balanced development. But the current economic crisis threatens to put the gains that have been made since Cairo at risk.

According to the World Bank, the crisis could lead to increases in infant and maternal mortality, female dropout rates and violence against women and girls. If left unchecked, these consequences will reverse progress in women's empowerment and in meeting several of the MDGs, especially the first five (end poverty and hunger, universal education, gender equality, child health, and maternal health). As more people slide into poverty and health budgets are slashed, the crisis could also jeopardize progress in combating HIV/AIDS (MDG6). Policy responses that build on women's roles as economic agents and their preference for investing in their children can do a lot to mitigate the effects of the crisis on development.

Related resources:

Global Employment Trends Report 2009 - (pdf 616KB)

A global policy package to address the global crisis - (pdf 10.05MB)

The Financial and Economic Crisis: A Decent Work Response - (pdf 789 KB)

World of Work Report 2008 - Income inequalities in the age of globalization (pdf 1.6 MB)

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[1] Shwetlena Sabarwal, Nistha Sinha & Mayra Buvinic, The Global Financial Crisis: Assessing Vulnerability for Women and Children, World Bank (March 2009), http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/financialcrisis/pdf/Women-Children-Vulnerability-March09.pdf

[2] Erin Abrams & Pamela Weinsaft, Bailout and Current Economic Crisis May Have Disproportionate Impact on Women, The Glass Hammer (Oct 14, 2008), http://www.theglasshammer.com/news/2008/10/14/bailout-and-current-economic-crisis-may-have-disproportionate-impact-on-women/

[3] International Labor Organization, The Financial and Economic Crisis: A Decent Work Response, Executive Summary (2009), http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inst/download/tackling.pdf

[4] International Labour Organization, op cit.

[5] ILO op cit

[6] ILO, op cit

[7] Stephanie Seguino, Emerging issue: The gender perspectives of the financial crisis, UN Commission on the Status of Women, 53^rd Session (March 2–13, 2009).

[8] Thalif Deen, Financial Crisis Threatens Women's Meager Gains, Inter Press Service (March 4, 2009), available at: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/03/04.

[9] Deen, op cit

[10] Malcolm Ehrenpreis & Alejandra Viveros, Women In 33 Countries Highly Vulnerable To Financial Crisis Effects, World Bank, News Release No:2009/245/PREM (3/06/2009), http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTGENDER/0,,contentMDK:22092604~menuPK:2643809~pagePK:64020865~piPK:149114~theSitePK:336868,00.html.

[11] Sabarwal, Sinha & Buvinic.

[12] Deen, op cit

[13] Deen, op cit

[14] Sabarwal, Sinha & Buvinic

[15] Shwetlena, Sinha & Buvinic.

[16] Ehrenpreis & Viveros, op cit.

[17] Deen, op cit.

[18] Sabarwal, Sinha & Buvinic

[19] Sabarwal, Sinha & Buvinic

[20] Rosa G. Lizarde, Facilitator for the CSW NGO Consultation Day Break-out Group on the Emerging Issue: Gender Perspectives of the Financial Crisis, 1 March 2009.

[21]Seguino, op cit..

[22] Shwetlena Sabarwal, Nistha Sinha & Mayra Buvinic.

[23] Seguino. Op cit.

Corruption

So I receive Google alerts on various development related topics and the other day I came across this article: http://www.france24.com/en/20090901-french-press-slam-african-leader-lavish-holidays-paul-biya-la-baule

Things like this make me absolutely disgusted. This just proves that corrupt African countries need NGOs to ensure people's money actually gets to the people. I am proud to be bypassing the hands of corruption.

Africa Need our Help

I am feeling much better today. I visited a village today. Africa is really making me feel overwhelmed. People need so much help here. There isn’t even enough water for everyone in the village. Yes, water, a basic staple of life that most, if not all, people reading this use in copious amounts every day. I can’t even quantify how much water I consume every day. I was sitting there listening to a woman tell me that water is a serious problem in the village while I had a huge 1.5 liter bottle of water in my bag. I felt ashamed that I had WATER!

I also noticed/smelled sewage running through this particular village. There were flies everywhere making their home in the filth. The children were all smiling, playing with dirt right near filth and trying to hide from me L. The women in this village were all sitting at stands selling various things, fish, vegetables, hair products, etc. I must say it didn’t look like there was too much economic activity going on, but at least they were trying. The men were playing chess and foosball.

I had the chance to talk to one young girl who was 13. She recently had to drop out of school to work. She explained how hard school had become for her. She had to walk miles to the nearest school and had no money to eat during the day. Lack of food would cause her to be completely exhausted all day, and she found it hard to learn. It finally came time where she just had to stop school to work and help provide for her family. She babysits in the village.

After the village I went to a place on the campus of the public University that the law students created as a study area. This ‘study area’ is actually outside in a wooded area. Many students come to the middle of the woods to study because it is the only quiet place they can find. Imagine that.

My next stop was Kere, a student residence that was just started as an alternative to the public University residences. Foundation SCA is looking to possibly fund this project and its activities for 2010. The residence is a simple apartment that sleeps about 10 girls and is walking distance from the University. They were kind enough to cook dinner for me and talk about their situations. It was so good to have a home cooked meal!

The girls explained their situation prior to having the pleasure of living in Kere. Many of them had to get up at about 5am to be at school by 9am. They don’t live close to Abidjan and the buses are often late, unreliable, full, and the traffic can be terrible. Four girls, Bertine, Bertina, Rose, and Vicki all had these similar stories. When they started their University studies they commuted from their homes. After realizing that getting up at 5am, not being able to afford to eat all day because they needed transportation money, waiting hours to fit onto a bus home, and finally walking in the door around 10pm was not allowing time or energy for study, they looked for an alternative.

[Sidenote: there are very few buses and people literally fight to fit onto the bus. The bus stops are packed and students often wait for hours to get on the bus and are even forced to sleep on the University campus because they don’t fit on the last bus]

Their alternative was usually living with a distant relative or family friend who was somewhat closer to the University. As I explained before, this living situation is not ideal either. These girls can now walk to school and save their money for FOOD to fuel their minds during the day. They have a peaceful place to live where they can help each other with studying and schoolwork. They kept telling me how much they all felt like a family.

Bertina described her brief stay in the public University residences. She shared a tiny room with 2 other girls. She said it was impossible to live in this environment, much less study. She would try to buy food to eat during the week and people would just take it out of her room and eat it without asking. Parties were going on at all hours of the night, electricity was a rare luxury, etc...I think you get the idea.

I never realized how much I took the facilities at my College for granted. I can’t imagine nt having anywhere but the woods to study. This is no exaggeration either; I have seen it with my own eyes.

The girls were so wonderful though. After a delicious meal they asked me questions. The one girl was cracking me up with her questions. She kept asking me about ridiculous things she had seen on tv. She said she saw a show about cheerleaders and was really curious as to how 'cool' they were in high school. I assured her that cheerleaders were NOT that cool. (haha sorry I went to an all girls high school.. so biased) I also told them about my college living situation, which they found to be amazing. Although I have found it difficult sharing my experiences with the women I have met, I think it is important that they know that the state of their country is unacceptable, and they should demand higher standards. It has been hard to find a balance between conveying 'this is what you should be demanding' as opposed to 'haha look what the US has and you don't, you should just move here'. I think I have found a good balance.

We sang and danced after dinner. The girls even prepared a rendition of Alica Keys’ song ‘No One’ for me. They were good!! I was sad to leave them and wish I could’ve spent more time talking with these strong and determined young women.

Healthcare in Cote d'Ivoire

Today I went to Ilomba which is a health clinic for a village near its location, as well as a professional school for young women. The village was probably an hour or so from Abidjan and basically in the jungle. There are no real roads to get there, rather scary driving this way. I may have hit my head on the side of the car a few times from the bumps. No one was at the clinic since it is now Holidays, but I got to see the facilities. This year they have given over 400 tetanus and typhoid shots to villagers. The doctors at Ilomba are also very focused on child malnutrition and maternal health. I saw pictures of all of the adorable healthy babies that have Ilomba to thank.

After a tour of the clinic I went to see the nearest village. People here are living in shacks made out of tin scraps and wood/sticks. It’s so hard to see people living this way. I saw lots of women and young girls preparing atchike – something women sell in the market place. It takes a long time to prepare and earns them very little money. I saw the local school which was unimpressive, to say the least. Many times the teachers of this school will take the children from the school hours and make them work on their plantations instead of teaching them. How do people get away with this stuff?

After the village I had lunch back in Abidjan with some students. They explained to me how difficult studying and living in Abidjan was. Many didn’t even have a place to live and had to stay with distant relatives. This situation sounds ideal but really isn’t because many times they must do housework to earn their keep and don’t have time to study. These relatives many times do not live that close to the University.

After lunch we visited a public hospital – also appalling. The women I was with basically told me that you don’t go to the public hospital with an illness and get better after being there. Pregnant women were lying around outside waiting to be treated or to fit in the hospital. They were camped outside of the hospital. There are mice running around and the buildings are completely deteriorated. It’s hot and smelly inside of the hospital too. Maybe it was my exhaustion, dehydration, or the things I was looking at but I got sick at the hospital. Funny part of this is that I was taken back to my hotel and not treated at the hospital! I think that sums everything up that’s going on there (shudder).

Mission Impossible: University Studies in Cote d'Ivoire

I visited the Public University today. I don’t mean to be offensive when I say this but it was a horrifying experience. I cannot believe young adults are expected to seriously learn in that kind of environment. The most shocking thing is that students have somehow kept themselves motivated and try to learn under absolutely appalling conditions. I mean these buildings haven’t been renovated or even taken care of for at least 30 years. They are dirty and falling apart. There are about 50,000 students at the university and it is smaller than where I went to school that had a population of about 3,000 undergrad students. All of the classes have about 1,000 students enrolled when the classrooms can only fit about half of them. Students are forced to try and listen from the hallway or even outside and peer in through the window.

From talking with the students it seems the teachers and the government has zero commitment to education. Many times teachers will go on strike right before students are supposed to take their final exams so they can move onto the next year. So what happens? They can’t take the exam and just sit around waiting to take it for months. They can’t move into the next year without it. This happens a lot. Many of the students are in year 2007 because of the strike – 2 years behind. Also a teacher will often just get another job, leave and are never replaced.

The living conditions are also terrifying. I walked around the public student residences and they look like prisons. I don’t even know how to begin to describe. I mean aside from being just completely depressing looking, these buildings are dirty, smell terrible, are loud, and have no places for studying. They are cement blocks with students crammed into tiny rooms not even big enough for one person. My roommate’s closet is the size of these rooms, if not slightly bigger. Many times the electricity will be off for days in these residences. Forget about being able to study here. No way can you fit desks in these rooms, and they don’t have a common study area like most dorms in the US – not even close. It’s a bizarre scene. There are families living there too with little children running around. Some students just never move out because it is cheap to live there and no one makes them leave.

I sort of barged in to one room where I met a girl by the name of Christie. She was kind enough to tolerate me and speak with me for awhile. She told me how it was hard to study because a lot of times you don’t even have books to work with. Teachers aren’t available for outside help or questions. I shuddered at the thought of this – I told Christie I would absolutely have failed some of my Economics classes if I wasn’t able to stalk my teachers during their office hours. Christie also told me that in one class her professor became sick so they only had 2 classes for the whole semester and had to teach themselves the entire course. Apparently substitute teachers do not exist in Cote d’Ivoire. There is clearly not an environment conducive to learning here.

Kiambu

Today was my last day in Kenya. These trips have been going by so fast! I have another wonderful overnight flight in which I will probably get 1 hour of sleep and look absolutely terrifying tomorrow. Can’t wait! Haha.

So today I saw a project that I really fell in love with. I met up with a woman by the name of Susan, a former banker who is the director of the Kiambu project for village women. This project gives women business training so that they can efficiently budget for their household as well as earn an income and run a business. It was started in 2003, and has since then helped about 1,200 women. Before I start talking about this project there is something that is important to understand. Life for women in Kenya, in Africa in general actually, is very hard. This may be a generalization to some, but usually in the villages the man/husband does not do any work and the woman/wife is left to be the breadwinner. I have seen it with my own eyes… men are sitting around doing absolutely nothing, and women are either in the markets selling things or seen carrying heavy loads of goods on their heads. This isn’t to say absolutely no men work in Kenya, but like I said, in general this is the case.

So you have the woman who is struggling to make a buck, provide for their family, and put the children through school, which is often not a priority for the husband. The husband usually does not see the point in spending money to send his daughters to school, and since the woman is thought of as less of a person, whose opinion does not really matter, the girls don’t go to school beyond primary. Basically if these women ever want to see a better life for themselves, or their children, that responsibility rests solely on them.

Now…Kiambu enters the scene. Susan has recognized these issues among the women of Kenya and has decided to do something about it. University students studying business volunteer their time to teach these women, who are anywhere from 25-60, about business. Some things that are covered: startup capital, time management, efficiency and record keeping, inventory, marketing, micro finance, budgeting, saving, and even stress management since many of these women are living in very stressful situations. The integration of University students and village women is so unique and really works. Many of these women are illiterate so the youthful teaching style of the University students really helps the women remember the lessons. Each lesson is followed by a skit that covers the topic of the day. I had the pleasure of attending a class and watching a skit on marketing!

During a break of the class I got to talk with the women. Some of them are very bright!! They were very curious as to what I was doing there and weren’t shy to ask questions. They were very interested to know what “Obama Land” was like. I tried to paint a picture of democracy for them; a land where government, despite its flaws, is mainly there for the people, and if it isn’t it will surely hear about it. I don’t want to trash the Kenyan government because after all I am not a citizen and don’t know every detail of what goes on, but I just can’t help but wonder where the government is. The people in Kenya don’t even have water for God sakes. Lack of water has become a grave problem across the Country. It is truly amazing the lack of support anyone receives from the government; voices are not heard.

They also wanted to know what kind of programs Foundation SCA was interested and how they could help! I told the ones that expressed an interest in volunteering that I would remember they offered!

Every woman gets a mentor after they complete the program. These mentors meet with the women every week for 6 months. They not only talk about how the business is going, but how they are managing family and life in general.

I know this post is becoming terribly long but just one last thing I want to talk about. The success stories!!! One woman in particular has an amazing story I want to share the condensed version…

Meet Naomi. Naomi wasn’t allowed by her husband to leave the village and partake in business activities. She somehow managed to enroll in the program in 2004 with her husband’s permission and immediately gained value from what she learned. She bought her own cow when she had enough money. Her husband had his cows, but she wanted her own. Because she was illiterate she made sure that she sold her milk to the local dairy store because they would write down the amounts and money owed on a paper. She would make her son confirm that they had written the correct amounts and weren’t ripping her off. This is how she was able to keep records despite her illiteracy.

Flash forward to 2009 and Naomi now has 3 cows, water, a truck, no dirt floor, electricity, a plot of land in her name, and the respect of her husband. She has even gained the income to send her youngest daughter who is 15 to private school.