{"id":4643,"date":"2011-08-04T16:26:22","date_gmt":"2011-08-04T23:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stirringthefire.com\/blog\/?p=1199"},"modified":"2014-05-14T15:30:58","modified_gmt":"2014-05-14T22:30:58","slug":"interviewing-women-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philborges.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/04\/interviewing-women-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"Interviewing Women Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\"><em>Phil is in Liberia documenting the work of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foundationforwomen.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Foundation for Women<\/a> (FFW), an organization that strives to continually support and encourage impoverished women, both globally and locally, by funding and creating microcredit programs. A longtime supporter of Phil and his work, Kevin Castner is traveling with him and reporting back to us from the field.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Even though it was a national holiday, Liberian Independence Day, Emily Peal has persuaded Charles Niawah and Arthur Tamba to take us to interview two of our young women participating in the Women\u2019s Leadership Conference at their homes as they prepare to take part in the festivities.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1237\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stirringthefire.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/04\/interviewing-women-leaders\/img_0556-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1237\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1237\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1237\" title=\"IMG_0556\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stirringthefire.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0556.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1237\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Caroline Gets Water<\/p><\/div>\n<p>We drive out to the district of Bardnesville to visit Caroline Armah.\u00a0 It is another pothole adventure with the van bouncing around like we\u2019re in a pinball game.\u00a0 Potholes here put country roads in the developed world to shame.\u00a0 They are really obstacle courses, broad and deep.\u00a0 Caroline\u2019s house has a countryside feel to it.\u00a0 There is a well, and a shaded lawn.\u00a0 The house is very modest and dark; they have no electricity.\u00a0 In a small corner just inside the door Phil films her helping her aunt make a charcoal fire to cook the meal they\u2019ll have to celebrate.\u00a0 Caroline sprinkles water she just got from the well outside onto the coal embers on the floor.\u00a0 Phil wants to interview her, and Caroline looks great, but he asks her to change into the clothes she normally wears around the house.<\/p>\n<p>An aside.\u00a0 Liberian women dress in colors bright enough to take your breath away.\u00a0 You have to remind yourself that they are poor.\u00a0 I mention this impression to Emily and she talks about the difference in fabric quality and that most women buy at the lowest end of the spectrum.\u00a0 I talk about it to Deborah Lindholm and she says, \u201cThey have no beauty except what they create\u201d.\u00a0 She also reminds me that when the women of Liberia marched for peace in 2003, recounted in the documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell,\u00a0they wore only white.<\/p>\n<p>Phil asks Caroline why she wants to become a doctor.\u00a0 She says her father died because they couldn\u2019t treat him here in Liberia and that inspired her to work hard so that, in the future, nobody in Liberia will have to die because of lack of adequate medical attention.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1200\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stirringthefire.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/04\/interviewing-women-leaders\/img_0582\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1200\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1200\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1200\" title=\"IMG_0582\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stirringthefire.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0582.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1200\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lydia Browne shows off the quilts she sells with her FFW loan<\/p><\/div>\n<p>We get back in the vans, negotiate our way around the obstacles, and drive to Point Four to meet Asalyne Browne.\u00a0 She lives just off the Point Four highway, and traffic rumbles right past her front door.\u00a0 Asalyne\u2019s mom is the connection to FFW.\u00a0 Her mom uses her loan to buy bundles of used quilts that she displays to all the foot traffic on the highway.\u00a0 She buys a bundle of quilts for about $175US, turns it over every two weeks or so, and clears about $20 per bundle.\u00a0 That\u2019s $40US per month or about $500US a year, not a bad business here.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not all.\u00a0 In another room fronting the main road she has also started a free school.\u00a0 The school meets five days a week for two sessions a day.\u00a0 They teach computers, but they have only one desktop.\u00a0 They teach sewing but two of the four machines are broken.\u00a0 They also teach baking, catering, decorating and hairstyling.\u00a0 Their students range in age from 18 to 50 and are 75% women.\u00a0 Lydia Browne is a dynamo.\u00a0 No wonder her daughter Asalyne is a leader.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1201\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stirringthefire.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/04\/interviewing-women-leaders\/img_0573\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1201\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1201\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1201\" title=\"IMG_0573\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stirringthefire.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0573.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1201\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lydia Browne (Asalyne&#39;s mom) in front of her home\/school<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Up next &#8211; the girl&#8217;s begin production on their movie!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Phil is in Liberia documenting the work of Foundation for Women (FFW), an organization that strives to continually support and encourage impoverished women, both globally and locally, by funding and creating microcredit programs. A longtime supporter of Phil and his work, Kevin Castner is traveling with him and reporting back to us from the field&#8230;.  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.philborges.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/04\/interviewing-women-leaders\/\" class=\"more-link\" title=\"Read Interviewing Women Leaders\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133,22],"tags":[136,137,215,216,139],"class_list":["post-4643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-documentary-training","category-stirring-the-fire","tag-foundation-for-women","tag-from-the-field","tag-kevin-castner","tag-liberia","tag-microcredit"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Interviewing Women Leaders - Phil Borges<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.philborges.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/04\/interviewing-women-leaders\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Interviewing Women Leaders - Phil Borges\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Phil is in Liberia documenting the work of Foundation for Women (FFW), an organization that strives to continually support and encourage impoverished women, both globally and locally, by funding and creating microcredit programs. 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