Ted Talk by Kavita N. Ramdas, president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women

Kavita tells the stories of three amazing women that have taken part in the global movement to empower women and girls by embracing and integrating their tradition and culture into their efforts. 

Global Fund for Women

The Global Fund for Women is a nonprofit grantmaking foundation that advances women’s human rights worldwide. We are a network of women and men who believe that ensuring women’s full equality and participation in society is one of the most effective ways to build a just, peaceful and sustainable world. We raise funds from a variety of sources and make grants to women-led organizations that promote the economic security, health, safety, education and leadership of women and girls.

Mt. Nyiru, Kenya                                                                                     Sukulen, 37

As a social documentary photographer and filmmaker I typically have to suggest marketing ideas to the nonprofit organizations I work with. I find it important to get to know what the PR or marketing staff of the organizations are trying to accomplish and then brainstorm with them on projects that could accomplish their goals. For example in talking with Helen Garrett, the marketing director of Amnesty International, I learned that they wanted to conduct a multicity campaign in North America and Europe to celebrate the 50^th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They wanted to collect 10,000,000 signatures of people rededicating themselves to the UDHR. In our conversations I suggested the signatures be collected in museums and galleries so there could be a backdrop of images at the events they staged. Of course it was my suggestion that I could supply the images and book that traveled with the events. As a result they accomplished their goal and I was able to create my Enduring Spirit series.

Willoq, Peru                                               Lourdes 9, Benigno 18 mos.

Today many corporations are looking for ways to align their marketing efforts around social issues. ‘ Green marketing’ is a fast growing multimillion dollar business. This trend presents opportunities for the university student, retired baby boomer or documentary photographer who is passionate about an issue to find support. It just takes a little ambition and creativity to forge your own path.

Jinka, Ethiopia                                                                 Buzayan 6

Teresa, local Partera

Ninety percent of the women who die in childbirth do so because of postpartum hemorrhage.  Administering drugs like Oxytocin to women who are having postpartum bleeding causes the uterus to contract and very effectively stops the bleeding.  Unfortunately, Oxytocin has to be kept refrigerated.  Another very effective drug for post partum hemorrhage, Misoprostol, does not need refrigeration and is very inexpensive—therefore an ideal drug for the Parteras to have on hand.  Unfortunately, because ‘Miso’ can also be used to induce an abortion, it has not been allowed to be used in the heavily Catholic Tarahumara Sierra. 

Arlene Samen the executive director of One HEART traveled to Mexico City to see if she could get the ban on ‘Miso’ lifted in the Tarahumara Sierra if proper precautions against misuse were taken.  The Mexican authorities who have been extremely welcoming to One HEART are taking Arlene’s request into consideration.  If approved it will be a huge victory for the Tarahumara women and their families.

I find these numbers a shocking reminder of how insular our country is today.

However, as I traveled around the country promoting the Women Empowered project I found many college and high school students were coming up to me after my presentation and asking how they might get involved.  I began to realize that these students could be a significant source of support for empowering women and girls in the developing world.  For the most part they didn’t have much money to donate but wanted to volunteer their time.  The students who had traveled abroad let me know how much their trips that involved some form of community service had “changed their lives”.  

Of course the most personal way to contribute is to volunteer time.  University students who are not yet tied down with family obligations and mortgage payments are ideal candidates for this type of involvement.  It’s an excellent way to broaden perspectives and get an experiential high by giving to something outside of oneself.

In 2009 I decided to expand and reconfigure the Women Empowered exhibition and website to, among other things, reach this younger demographic by including multimedia pieces and an expanded call to action that offered many more ways to get involved.  I want the exhibition and website to inspire student participation—to make it easy for students to become advocates and to provide resources that would allow them to find study abroad or volunteer programs that focused on the issues faced by women and girls in the developing world.

I’m looking for organizations that have programs that allow university students to take a semester abroad and work with local organizations that empower women and girls.  It would be ideal if the program were structured so the student could choose their specific area of interest (i.e. maternal health, micro credit, girl’s education, child trafficking, etc.)  It would be even more ideal if the student could receive credit toward their degree for their time abroad.  SIT –(School for International Training) is a good example.  If anyone knows of organizations with programs like this I would be so appreciative if you let me know.  I want a list of resources to accompany my website and exhibition Women Empowered as it travels to universities to help students that want to get involved with these issues.

In my work I have had the opportunity to see many of the issues women face in the developing world up close and personal.  I realize that many people that want to help women and girls have not had a face to face encounter with those they would like to help. 

Fortunately, nonprofits have recently evolved some great techniques to make donors feel engaged with the personal stories of those in need.  Along with the desire to feel that person-to-person connection, lenders are becoming savvier and clearly desire an explanation of precisely where their donations are going. 

A recent blog post by David Roodman states, ‘In short, the person-to-person donor-to-borrower connections created by Kiva are partly fictional.”  This information attracted widespread attention.  The “Donor Illusion” debate is outlined well in this article in the NY Times and this is another great source of additional information.

In my opinion the way in which the nonprofit world is evolving is a step in the right direction.  The desire to have a direct person-to-person contribution with no intermediary is in itself an illusion.  Tim Odgen of Philanthropy Action makes this point well.

Kiva gives you a list of photographs and profiles of individuals you can support with a micro credit loan.   Your loan goes to one of Kiva’s worldwide “Field Partners”, (microfinance institutions that service the community where the individual you have chosen lives).  The Field Partner approves and disburses a microloan to the entrepreneur you have chosen and gives them a repayment schedule.  When the loan gets repaid you can collect it or designate another entrepreneur to lend it to.

The Kiva model of lending is currently being used to help worthy students get educational loans in countries where student loans have heretofore been nonexistent. 

Another program for donors (not lenders) administered by CARE that takes off on this idea is Join My Village.  Instead of choosing an individual to contribute to you choose a village in Africa and General Mills matches your contribution dollar for dollar.   The donations to Join My Village support ‘Village Savings and Loan’ programs that enable small groups of women to form their own micro banks.  I visited many of these VSL groups when I was in Malawi last year and was very impressed. 

I created a multimedia piece about the program for CARE if you would like to learn more.

As time goes on I’m sure more programs like these will make giving more personal and transparent.  I would love to hear of your experiences with organizations like these, as well as, similar organization that you have been impressed by?

The UN, UNICEF, the World Bank, CARE and other experts on poverty reduction like Jeffrey Sachs and Paul Farmer have indicated that the key to alleviating global poverty and its attendant ills (like fundamentalism and extremism) is by empowering women and girls. Yet today less than 1% of US foreign aid targets programs that empower women and girls. Evidently it hasn’t gone unnoticed that the countries we are having the most trouble with right now are countries that marginalize their females. Hopefully this realization by the Joint Chiefs will prompt some rethinking about the allocation of our foreign aid funds.

Humaria,11, sells eggs on the streets of Kabul to help support her family. She has never attended school. Today the literacy rate for girls in Afghanistan is 15% in the urban areas like Kabul and .6% in the rural areas.

Fortunately, the citizen sector (non-profit organizations) are stepping up to fill this need. There are literally thousands of organizations providing micro credit loans and educational opportunities for women and girls or addressing the issues of maternal mortality, violence against women and child trafficking.

The big question most of us are asking is how can we help? In my next blog I would like explore how nonprofit models of giving are evolving to become more personal and transparent.

Exploited and trafficked girls in the United States

According to the Department of Justice, over 100,000 adolescents are involved in prostitution in the United States.  Sgt. Fassett of the Dallas Police dept pointed out an obvious irony of this situation.  “If a 45 year-old man has sex with a 14-year-old girl and no money changes hands, she will probably be sent to a counselor and he will likely get jail time for statutory rape.   However, if the same man leaves money on the table after having sex with her, she will probably be locked up as a prostitute and he will probably just get a fine as a john.”

Last Friday I went to Harlem to interview and photograph a remarkable woman by the name of Rachel Lloyd.  Rachel is the founder of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS) in New York City and has dedicated her life to the struggle to end sex trafficking.   Rachel herself a survivor from an alcoholic family in England dropped out of school at 13 and was recruited into the sex industry.  Like so many girls who end up on the streets she was raped and attempted suicide three times.  Eventually, she emigrated to the United States where she vowed not only to change her life but also to help empower girls and young women in need and fight for their rights.  She went back to school, first earning her GED, then a Bachelor’s degree in psychology and finally a Master’s degree in urban anthropology.

For more than ten years, GEMS has been at the forefront of the movement to end the commercial sexual exploitation of children, building a national reputation as the country’s leading resource on the issue. GEMS has trained thousands of service providers and professionals who come in contact with at-risk youth to recognize signs of exploitation and to intervene and assist young women in their healing and recovery. GEMS’ success is due in large part to Rachel’s compassion for and understanding of young victims, her ability to work with political and community leaders, and her desire to change perceptions of commercially sexually exploited victims.

Rachel told me that historically law enforcement in our country has punished the victims of the sex industry—the vulnerable and exploited adolescent girls that are coerced and trafficked into the trade.  She said that labeling and jailing them as ‘teen prostitutes’ instead of what they are–exploited and trafficked children– while ignoring the 30 to 40 year old men that sell and buy these girls has been a crime in itself.

I took Rachel’s  photograph on the street outside the GEMS small office and then conducted the following interview in her tiny cubicle while her energetic staff of young women went about their important and  revolutionary work.

Rachel’s interview really opened my eyes to the problem of sex trafficking—especially of children– here in the U.S.  Take a listen!

Women Empowered has been my primary focus project for sometime now.  I am currently expanding the exhibition to include multimedia profiles of a number of the women.  The first that I have completed is the story of Akhi, who at the age of 13, was sold as a sex worker.  She has since accomplished the near-impossible task of gaining support from religious, political and social groups to create an organization to finally give sex workers’ basic human rights.

In 2005 I met Fahima, a teacher since 1985.  She was one of the thousands of professional women who lost their jobs when the Taliban came to power in 1996.  In defiance of the Taliban and at great risk to herself, Fahima opened a clandestine school for young girls.  At one point 130 girls were coming to her home each week to study math, science, and the local language, Pushto.  When the girls were asked why they were going to Fahima’s house they said she was their aunt.  Although harassed by the religious police and threatened with beatings and worse, Fahima continued operating her school for girls until the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

Fahima now helps girls catch up with the education that they missed out on during the reign of the Taliban. 

Unfortunately, it is not news, that even with the fall of the Taliban Afghans still face severe challenges.  Most children work to help their family survive and few are able to attend school.  

Humaria sells eggs as a street vendor to help her family survive. As with many families in Afghanistan, years of war have left them very poor. Only half of all Afghan children ages 7 to 13 attend school and typically boys are chosen over girls. 

“From acid attacks, murder, torching of schools and sexual assault, violence against female students is dashing the dreams of thousands of Afghan girls and women who are thirsty for an education that may help rejuvenate the fractured economy and society of their war-torn country.”  From Reuters, Jan. 2009. 

Dexter Filkins, a reporter for The New York Times, took a stand to help improve conditions for education in Afghanistan.  I highly recommend you read his wonderful story.  

Nafisa was thrilled when she learned she was chosen to attend Salman-e-Fars, a new school recently opened for young girls in Kabul.  Girls now make up thirty-four percent of the student population in Afghanistan- a dramatic increase since the Taliban rule, when it was essentially zero.

Here are a few of the extraordinary women I have had the honor to meet. Women who have broken through a cycle of repression or cultural tradition that limited their well-being and that of their communities— women heroes, remote and mostly unknown, on the leading edge of a global movement toward social and economic justice for women and girls.

Dr. Chandini Perera
Plastic Surgeon

I met Chandini in Sri Lanka while doing a film for the nonprofit organization Interplast. Interplast provides support for the victims of severe burns around the world. Chandini created almost from scratch one the most successful burn centers in Sri Lanka.

When Chandini first started working with burns at the main hospital in Sri Lanka’s capital, she was surprised to find that the majority of her severe burn patients were women. They claimed the burns were accidental. However, as she began to treat these women she could not help but notice that the burns followed a specific pattern.  The burns were typically on the front of the upper body, arms, neck and face. As she slowly gained the confidence of these women they confided to her that they had set fire to themselves. Realizing that these women needed more than just the physical treatment for their burns, she formed a team that included a psychologist, a rehabilitation specialist, and several nurse practitioners.

Chandini told me that 70% of her severe burn patients are the result of self immolation. I didn’t understand it. Why would someone set themselves on fire? It had to be the most painful way to die.

Self Immolation Patient

As I documented Chandini’s work and met some of these women I began to realize that this terrible problem had its roots in women’s social and economic injustices. Self immolation not only happens frequently in Sri Lanka and India but is prevalent in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Kumari, Colombo, Sri Lanka

Here is a multimedia piece about Chandini titled “Postcards from Heaven”.  She is currently working tirelessly to raise awareness and end domestic violence in Sri Lanka.