In the meantime, go to http://www.careconference.org for more information. You don't have to be physically in Washington, DC to make a difference. There are opportunities to get in touch with your Senator or Congressman (woman) from the comfort of your own home. And there are always opportunities to assemble an advocacy team and visit the district office of your local representative.
I am the State Chair in Missouri for the CARE USA Action Network...Let's Advocate for a Better World from the Heartland
Friday, February 8, 2013
Going to the CARE Conference 2013
Good news! I will be attending the CARE conference in Washington, DC this year and blogging from there with all the news and happenings that occur while I am there!
In the meantime, go to http://www.careconference.org for more information. You don't have to be physically in Washington, DC to make a difference. There are opportunities to get in touch with your Senator or Congressman (woman) from the comfort of your own home. And there are always opportunities to assemble an advocacy team and visit the district office of your local representative.
In the meantime, go to http://www.careconference.org for more information. You don't have to be physically in Washington, DC to make a difference. There are opportunities to get in touch with your Senator or Congressman (woman) from the comfort of your own home. And there are always opportunities to assemble an advocacy team and visit the district office of your local representative.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Mythbusters-We're Up To #2
I try to go the CARE's website often. One never knows what new content has been added. And let's face it- the reality is that although folks should care about the subject matter without question, some people need to be pulled in with interesting headlines and videos and blogs. All in all, a well-designed, interactive, up-to-date website helps. Fortunately, that is what CARE has. It appeals to the serious expert looking for engagement and information and to the person who has just stumbled across it by accident and holds both of their interest.
Myths hold back half of society. They keep girls out of school. They cause hunger and can even keep girls from getting the lifesaving health care they need. Thankfully, courageous women - and men - have worked toward gender equality and to destroy those myths.
Myths hold back half of society. They keep girls out of school. They cause hunger and can even keep girls from getting the lifesaving health care they need. Thankfully, courageous women - and men - have worked toward gender equality and to destroy those myths.
10 myths and the heroes that work against them are being profiled on CARE.org. And reading their stories is inspiring because they are making a real difference in their communities against almost impossible odds. I have a relative with a PhD. in Mathematics so I KNOW the myth that girls are not good in math and science is just plain wrong. Come back every month to read more stories and spread the word.
http://www.care.org/getinvolved/mythbusters/index.asp
Monday, July 18, 2011
A Great Opportunity
CARE USA definitely wants to educate its volunteers and engage them in support of their efforts. But it also wants to do the same for our legislators. CARE offers a great opportunity to travel with them to a different country (or counties) and learn about a specific issue. So, far several have participated and been moved by their experience. Certainly, seeing and interacting with the people CARE helps empower is an empowering and unforgettable experience which we hope our legislators and policy makers remember. So far, however, no one from Missouri has been represented. But that will change one day with commitment from CARE staff and volunteers. Maybe one day volunteers like me can tag along on these trips!
Please read more taken from CARE's website below:
There is a unique two country Learning Tour to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, scheduled for August 22-27, 2011 (6 days total travel).
CARE says, "The LEARNING TOURS grant provides policy makers and influential decision-makers the opportunity to experience first hand the status of maternal health in the developing world. With support from The Gates Foundation, CARE will host six trips within three years to developing countries and support efforts upon return for positive change.
Goal: To cultivate policy making champions and other influential individuals to heighten support for improved policies and increased funding for maternal, newborn and child health in the developing world."
To learn more about completed Learning Tours: Go to http://www.care.org/learningtours to download trip reports from each Learning Tour.
CARE says, "The LEARNING TOURS grant provides policy makers and influential decision-makers the opportunity to experience first hand the status of maternal health in the developing world. With support from The Gates Foundation, CARE will host six trips within three years to developing countries and support efforts upon return for positive change.
Goal: To cultivate policy making champions and other influential individuals to heighten support for improved policies and increased funding for maternal, newborn and child health in the developing world."
To learn more about completed Learning Tours: Go to http://www.care.org/learningtours to download trip reports from each Learning Tour.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
A MicroSAVINGS Strategy That Works
CARE USA releases major report on microsavings! I was lucky enough to listen in on a conference call recently discussing CARE's microsavings programs. They released their second major report on the state of microfinance in Africa. I have not read it yet, but CARE has provided their volunteers with a nice summary of the main points below. What I took from this is that CARE designs program thoughtfully and deliberately with the poorest of the poor in mind. Often these are folks that are not even reached by most development organizations. And their focus on having women save money instead of borrowing (microCREDIT) and incurring large amounts of debt, is incredibly smart. Read a summary taken from their website below:
"CARE is one of the world's largest humanitarian organizations and brings savings-led financial services to more people in Africa than any other international non-governmental organization. Our report, "Closing The Gap," explains in detail how community-based savings groups, known as village savings and loan associations (VSLAs), offer an effective, sustainable way to begin meeting the enormous unmet demand for financial services in Africa's poorest communities. At the same time, VSLAs offer millions of participants the financial know-how they need to begin seeking vital financial services from formal financial institutions. Nearly half of sub-Saharan Africa's 800 million people live on less than $1 a day. Eighty percent have no access to financial services.
CARE VSLAs are open to all, but focus on women because experience shows their success creates lasting, beneficial change for entire families and communities. The report urges the U.S. government and others to adopt policies promoting financial inclusion for women, and to target such efforts at countries and communities where poverty and discrimination have created the greatest need.
"When poor women have a place to save money, or take a loan to start a small business, they can lift themselves, their families and entire communities out of poverty," says Lauren Hendricks, executive director of CARE's Access Africa. "For financial inclusion to become reality, women must be at the center of policies and outreach."
Founded in 2008, CARE's Access Africa program has reached more than 2.5 million people in 26 African nations. It will reach 30 million people in 38 countries within 10 years. Seventy percent of them will be women.
CARE focuses on offering savings-led microfinance to women as a way of initiating permanent, beneficial social change in Africa. Women are the cornerstone of African economic development, producing the vast majority of Africa's food despite owning less than 2 percent of the continent's land. Because women invest their earnings in their families, programs that promote women's economic development often yield significant benefits for a family's overall well-being.
CARE's VSLAs are typically built by women living on less that $2 per day who collectively save pennies each week, then make small loans to each other to help finance small businesses. CARE offers VSLA members one year of intensive training in managing money, but no direct capital investment. Because VSLAs are self-contained and operated by their own members, they are sustainable and replicable in communities where traditional financial institutions cannot operate."
**Note: To download CARE's new microfinance report and learn more about how CARE fights global poverty by empowering girls and women, please visit www.care.org/SOS
CARE VSLAs are open to all, but focus on women because experience shows their success creates lasting, beneficial change for entire families and communities. The report urges the U.S. government and others to adopt policies promoting financial inclusion for women, and to target such efforts at countries and communities where poverty and discrimination have created the greatest need.
"When poor women have a place to save money, or take a loan to start a small business, they can lift themselves, their families and entire communities out of poverty," says Lauren Hendricks, executive director of CARE's Access Africa. "For financial inclusion to become reality, women must be at the center of policies and outreach."
Founded in 2008, CARE's Access Africa program has reached more than 2.5 million people in 26 African nations. It will reach 30 million people in 38 countries within 10 years. Seventy percent of them will be women.
CARE focuses on offering savings-led microfinance to women as a way of initiating permanent, beneficial social change in Africa. Women are the cornerstone of African economic development, producing the vast majority of Africa's food despite owning less than 2 percent of the continent's land. Because women invest their earnings in their families, programs that promote women's economic development often yield significant benefits for a family's overall well-being.
CARE's VSLAs are typically built by women living on less that $2 per day who collectively save pennies each week, then make small loans to each other to help finance small businesses. CARE offers VSLA members one year of intensive training in managing money, but no direct capital investment. Because VSLAs are self-contained and operated by their own members, they are sustainable and replicable in communities where traditional financial institutions cannot operate."
**Note: To download CARE's new microfinance report and learn more about how CARE fights global poverty by empowering girls and women, please visit www.care.org/SOS
Saturday, June 4, 2011
The CARE Package
The CARE Package is finally back in a big way! Except that now it empowers girls and women worldwide rather than being filled with delicious snacks. And it is easy to get involved.
First, go to http://www.carepackage.org to learn more. And build your own CARE package, join the CARE package group that I have created (St. Louis CARES) or join one of the many groups created by supporters from all over the country.
When you are there, you can learn about the lives of women and girls you will be helping and you can share your support with family and friends. As of today, CARE has commitments of over $37,000! It is such an empowering way to make a difference.
I hope that CARE has more user-generated ways to get people involved like this in the future.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Too Young To Wed
I read something that is causing a great deal of discussion on websites and blogs. National Geographic, in its June issue, has an article titled "Too Young to Wed: The Secret World of Child Brides.” This article is very informative and goes into detail outlining the complex reasons why this reality persists while including unforgettable stories of young girls and families in India, Afghanistan, and Yemen. It also mentions that organizations like the ICRW (International Center for Research on Women) are working diligently to end this illegal practice.
CARE is focused on ending child marriage too as is evidenced by the plethora of information on its website. Child marriage is a "gross human rights violation that puts young girls at risk and keeps them mired in poverty". According to CARE, more than 60 million girls under the age of 18 are married, mostly to men twice their age or even older. If child marriage does continue at its current rate, an additional 100 million girls in developing countries will be married within the next decade.
CARE is focused on ending child marriage too as is evidenced by the plethora of information on its website. Child marriage is a "gross human rights violation that puts young girls at risk and keeps them mired in poverty". According to CARE, more than 60 million girls under the age of 18 are married, mostly to men twice their age or even older. If child marriage does continue at its current rate, an additional 100 million girls in developing countries will be married within the next decade.
It is clear that poverty plays a central role in causing and perpetuating early marriage. Poor countries and families often have limited resources to support healthy alternatives for girls, such as education. In these families, child marriage is seen as a viable way to provide for their daughter's future even though girls who marry young have an increased chance of being poor and remaining poor. Arranged marriage is sometimes viewed as a business transaction and a way to preserve dignity for a family that does not want their daughter shaming the family by being unmarried or being ruined if they are not virgins when they marry.
Marrying at a young age has lasting consequences. Early marriage effectively ends a girls chances at education, endangers her health and cuts short her personal growth and development. Maternal health risks are high as the risk of death in pregnancy and delivery for girls under the age of 15 is "five times higher than for women in their 20s". In the National Geographic article, a 14-year-old girl was seen washing her baby girl with another baby sitting next to her. This married girl was still bleeding and ill from childbirth with little or no access to medical care.
The costs of this practice are too high to be ignored. We know that societies are unable to fully progress when the common practice of marriage dooms girls and women to a life of poverty and we have evidence of what kinds of interventions work.
CARE "works with families, communities and local organizations to both reduce the prevalence and less [en] the many harmful impacts of child marriage through educational and behavior-change programs". What I found comforting was that the article mentioned a young girl who was sponsored, able to attend school and has subsequently delayed getting married. And near the back page, a picture from 1916 from Korea shows two young children dressed up for their wedding. As far as I know, this does not happen much anymore in Korea.
Read the article at: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/child-brides/gorney-text
Please speak out about this harmful practice now: http://dld.bz/bbkP and learn more about child marriage and CARE's work in Ethiopia, Nepal, and Sierra Leone at:
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Mother's Day is Everyday
Mother's Day is everyday. Organizations like CARE know that maternal mortality and child health are crucial. That was the focus of the email that the CARE Action Network sent its supporters today. We must honor mothers by standing up for maternal health! Now is not the time to cut funding in our international affairs budget. That is why CARE is asking its supporters to let their representatives know that they care about women around the world and that that they will not accept women dying from giving birth. As is often the reality, we know how to prevent deaths but we do not have the political will.
Please go to: http://www.care.org/campaigns/mothersmatter/index.asp
to find out more, watch a video about a successful project in rural Peru, and send a letter to your representative.
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