Topic: Gender Equality

If you need health care, who makes the decisions about where you go, when you can visit a health center, and what treatment you can get? Do you have to ask permission from someone in your house? In Somalia, at the start of the project, 79% of women couldn’t make decisions themselves about when they or their kids got health care. 85% said they needed a husband’s permission to visit a clinic. By the end of the project, only 17% of women said they couldn’t make decisions about health care.

“Before COVID, the community didn’t really pay attention to us. Now we have a lot of power to make change – when we talk, people listen. It’s completely changed how we are perceived and treated.” - Female health worker, Uganda

Hina in Pakistan talks about the challenges of running her business in COVID: “We suffered a lot. There came a point at which we thought that we might not be able to stand our ground anymore. Yet I overcame the challenges and went on. Running a business and a house simultaneously is very hard. I get very little time to sleep.”

Want to make a difference in nutrition? One step is getting men to understand nutrition isn’t just a woman’s problem. Roseline says, “Some of my friends wonder how I make it early to the market nowadays, they were all amazed and admired my marriage after narrating the story of my husband.”

“…we no longer see [menstruation] as a burden but a change that has to happen to every woman. Girls and women now feel more secure and safe than before...” Woman in Kaborogota

“During these trying times, being a part of this savings group has really helped us cushion the adverse economic effects of the pandemic. From our social fund we buy food to share. We also use it to help support our children’s education and our hospital needs.” Fati Musa, Nigeria

Did you know there 150 million more hungry women than men in the world? That’s 3 times the population of Ukraine. The problem isn’t only that there are more hungry people in the world now—although that is tragically true. Women are more likely to hungry than men. That gap is growing—in 2021, the gap was more than 8 times higher than in 2018. The current crisis in Ukraine will make that worse, as will climate change, conflict, and the continued effects of COVID-19 on economies around the world.

“I feel stronger and more comfortable. I identified types of economic, physical, and emotional violence and know who can help me when I am in violent situation.”

“When people who need help call me, I feel like I am part of their lives” - from a music teacher in Syria to a humanitarian worker who supports refugees in Turkey