Women and Girls

In Malindi, Kenya, vast salt factories have poisoned farmland and plunged families deep into poverty. AJWS grantee Malindi Rights Forum has mobilized this community to fight the factories in court and return land to the community. These women, take a moment to rejoice.

ECPAT-USA’s Youth Against Child Trafficking (Y-ACT) program empowers youth to take the lead in anti-human trafficking efforts. ECPAT-USA trains students to be the foremost advocates in their communities and among their peers, educating them on the facts, misconceptions, and risks of trafficking. Students are provided the tools needed to identify the warning signs and proper resources to protect themselves and their peers. During one early morning workshop, the education team saw a student transition from avoiding the workshop altogether to becoming an active participant and advocate by the end. Prior to the class session, the Y-ACT educators positioned the chairs in a semicircle at the center of the room. At the start of the period, instead of sitting in the semicircle with the rest of their classmates, this student opted to find a seat behind a desk in the back left corner of the room. When handing out the pre-workshop…

When Ellen Donkor’s baby had a fever, she rushed the little girl to a clinic near Kumasi, Ghana, where doctors prescribed lifesaving medicine that parachuted from the sky – delivered by a drone. “If not for this service, we would be referred to another hospital,” Donkor says. “By the time you see the doctor there, your child might die.” Women’s Health to Wealth, an Americares partner in Ghana has a unique partnership with the drone service Zipline. When a shipment of medicine and medical supplies from Americares arrives in Ghana, Women’s Health to Wealth makes it available to clinics throughout the Ashanti Region and beyond, in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Ghana Health Service. Health facilities within Zipline’s Mpanya distribution center service area can also call Zipline anytime for a delivery. Thousands of items, including lifesaving IV fluids, antibiotics, prenatal supplements and other medicines and supplies from Americares…

On 16 September 2020, a student stands in an empty classroom in Panama City, Panama. A generation of children in Latin America and the Caribbean are missing out on schooling because of COVID-19. Due to the pandemic, 97 per cent of the region’s students have been deprived of their normal schooling. More than seven months into the pandemic, COVID-19 is putting education on hold for more than 137 million children in Latin America and the Caribbean. This is according to a new UNICEF report about the devastating impacts of COVID-19 on education. Since the start of the pandemic, children in Latin American and the Caribbean have already lost on average four times more days of schooling (174) compared to the rest of the world. In a region with over 11 million cases of COVID-19 to date, most students are now at risk of missing out on an entire school year. While schools are gradually reopening in several parts of the world, the vast majority of classrooms are still closed across the region. Almost half of all countries in Latin…

OutRight was founded by a woman and is a proudly feminist organization, committed to the advancement of gender equality and LGBTIQ human rights around the world. “Sandra” is a social justice advocate from Mauritius. She is an OutRight Religion Fellow. OutRight’s Religion Fellowship is a 12-month program that supports LGBTIQ human rights defenders from around the world to harness the New York-based UN system to add value to their existing work and to collaborate with peers on strategies for combating religiously based LGBTIQ-phobia. Speaking at the United Nations on behalf of the LBTI Caucus in 2021, Sandra had the opportunity to address a question to the United Nations’ Secretary General during the annual Townhall with Civil Society. She asked what actions have been taken by the United Nations (UN) for a people-centered recovery from COVID-19, specifically to ensure health care access and equity issues facing LGBTIQ seniors. The Secretary-General, Mr….

Michel became a mom in June 2021, when baby Nathan was born; she’s part of the Wayuu community. She lives with her dad, brother and another child that a friend asked her to care for two years ago. She’s a medical laboratory technician and holds a B.A. in Administration. Although she currently works as a Procurement Analyst, she doesn’t make enough to pay for basic needs. Michel has participated in different IRC-supported programs in the community center that is located a couple blocks away from her house. She first visited to get attention after experiencing pain while breast feeding, that’s how she joined the breast-feeding orientation program, in which she has now started to participate to share with other moms-to-be her experience. Additionally, she has joined the Wapushii program after Nathan was born, where she learns how to promote his development during the Early Childhood stage; she also has accessed…