Women. The strength, the perseverance, the endurance. Women.
The lack of educational opportunities, sexual violence, stigma and rejection. Charged with responsibilities in the face of enormous challenges, caring for children and home, family and fields, women are brave. And they are so much more than the difficulties they face. Women and girls in the developing world are paving new paths for growth, peace and healing, carrying their communities with them.
Women and girls are cornerstones; they provide structure and serve as the backbone to hold up the struggling, to lift up the weak. Communities are held together by these strong women who are changing the fabric of their societies. Formerly abducted girl child soldiers in Northern Uganda are going back to school and becoming counselors, teachers, tailors, leaders. Women in Northern Kenya are decreasing HIV/AIDS rates through educating their communities about the disease. Women in Mozambique are initiating savings groups to improve their local economies.
Women in the developing world. Some call them vulnerable.
We call them powerful.
"We have forgiven Kony," said Janet, her big dimples pressed into her bright cheeks, eyes alive, hands folded lightly on her lap. "And today, I am a new person."
Janet is 24 years old. Abducted by Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army in Northern Uganda when she was just 14, along with 12 other girls, she spent four years in the bush, forced to be a child soldier in a war she never wanted to fight. Janet says they called her a rebel and that she was beaten constantly. Janet was sexually abused, raped, and gave birth to four babies while in captivity; three of them died. After Janet escaped from the LRA, she was suicidal, her mind and heart felt blank, and when she looked into her future, she says there was only black.
When an FH counselor began meeting with Janet in an internally displaced person's camp, Janet's suicidal tendencies were alarming. She was referred to FH's New Life Center, an intensive 16-week live-in treatment program for traumatized women and girls, many of them formerly abducted girl child soldiers. While at the New Life Center the women and girls receive Christian trauma counseling, literacy classes and training in a variety of income generating skills to prepare them to return to their communities.
In the final week of Janet's time at the NLC she proudly proclaimed, "the bad things are gone, I want to help others learn how to love and forgive like I have." Her young daughter Alimo, the only child who survived, giggled constantly at her side. Janet continued to explain her vision to see girls like herself experience hope for the first time; to come from that blank empty space and into life. She took Alimo and placed her on her lap. "To love is to forgive, and to forgive is to forgive your enemy."
(Note - names have been changed to protect identities.)
what
+ Women’s HIV/AIDS Care Groups
+ New Life Center: Rehabilitation for Formerly Abducted Girl Child Soldiers
+ Psycho-Social Counseling in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camps
+ Training Community Members in Psycho-Social Relief
+ Women’s Micro-Enterprise Cooperatives
+ Adult Literacy Education
+ AIDS spreads twice as quickly among uneducated girls than among girls that have received some level of education.
+1 out of 3 women worldwide has experienced rape or sexual assault.
+More than 135 million girls and women have undergone female genital mutilation and an additional 2 million girls and women are at risk each year (6,000 every day)
+ Facts From: World Health Organization
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