I have come to strongly believe that opportunities and preparedness collide ever so often to create the thing people call LUCK!

In 2006, I was selected to represent Kenya on the Fortune/ State Department Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership. The experience was exactly what I needed to turn my life around and help many other women and girls in my country.

I am slowly beginning to see why this opportunity came my way.  At the time, however, no one could ever have convinced me of all the great things have happened as a result.
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We at Vital Voices are excited by a bit of little known, but ground-breaking news. Rwanda has just sworn in the world’s first women-majority parliament, as well as their first female Speaker of Parliament, Rose Mukantabana! The Vital Voices Global Leadership Network pledges its support to these women leaders to ensure that together, we can create lasting change in women’s lives.

The lower house of the Rwandan parliament (the Chamber of Deputies) is now 56.3% female, and leads the world as #1 for the percentage of women in parliament, according to the International Parliamentary Union (IPU). Other African countries to rank among the IPU’s top 20 for percentages of women in parliament are Angola at (#8 with 37.3%), Mozambique (#13 with 34.8%), South Africa (#17 with 33%) and Uganda (#20 with 30.7%). The USA ranks number 69 with 16.8%.

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I’ve just returned from an amazing trip to Africa where I participated as a trainer in four incredible training programs focused on increasing the role of women in public life. These four programs were all developed in conjunction with African alumnae of past Vital Voices programs. All of them inspired me and reminded me of the very real power of women as agents of change.

Nigeria

I started my trip in Lagos, Nigeria, where two alumnae of the April 2008 Vital Voices Women’s Political Academy held in Washington, DC, Meeme Ekanem and Olutoyin Obaseki, planned and organized a 3 day training for 30 women who have told their political party that they want to be party backed candidates in the upcoming Lagos State Council election. These women were from different parties but shared the same objective of being elected to the Lagos State Council.

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With hardly a moment to take breath as my colleagues and I organized a diverse spectrum of activities across Cameroon, a fascinating country where over 250 languages are spoken and the landscape ranges from the bustling congestion of the port city of Douala to the hilly rural areas spotted with homes adorned by spectacular tin-thatched roofs that reach up to the sky in a triangle shape. We were told that the more majestic the roof, the greater the status of the residents in terms of the village hierarchy.

We started our week with an introduction to the volunteer pilot committee and dedicated staff working on the AMA Market Women project, an initiative supported by Vital Voices Leadership and Advocacy Fund through a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The pilot committee is an impressive group of men and women, all market traders themselves, who have volunteered their time to see through the realization of the project’s objectives, which are to strengthen the voice of women market traders in the areas of tax administration, public health and sanitation, and commercial regulation.
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As the official launch of the 2008 Olympics commences and over 100 countries join together in sportsmanship, this event- a celebration of unity, is undermined by the cruelty that divides us between those who have a voice and those who are denied their most basic freedoms.

The New York Times reports that China selected 08.08.08 for the official launch of the Olympic games because the word “eight” sounds like the word for “good fortune” in both Mandarin and Cantonese. Yet for China’s (approximate) 40 million Burmese neighbors, this time conjures anything but the notion of good luck.

Twenty years and one day prior, marks the death of an estimated 3,000 peaceful demonstrators and the continued severity of a devastating military regime that commits the most gruesome of atrocities against its people.
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When I was visiting communities in the Moshi rural area in Tanzania in July 2007, I always noticed that the church was the center of the community. Whether the reason was that church was a central meeting ground for the community, supported their religious organization, or where people found their connection with the larger world, the church was a fundamental component of each community. It seems that the central role of the religious institution (whether it be church, mosque or temple) can be extrapolated to many parts of the developing world. People regard the words of the religious leader with particular attention and preeminence. Some people suggest that religious leaders have not played a positive role in confronting societal stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS. I’d like to offer a different perspective that the leader can be an influential voice to breaking down these barriers within communities. In addition to breaking down stigma, what else can the network of religious institutions throughout the world contribute to the fight against HIV/AIDS? Continue Reading »

One afternoon in late July, I sat in a field at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. In that field near the Tanzanian town of Moshi, I had the chance to speak with a group of women who wanted change in their community. This group of women called themselves ‘Upendo’, or ‘love’ in Swahili. It was perhaps an expression of a feeling they wished to use to transcend the estrangement many women such as themselves felt in communities around Africa. They were women who lived with the consequences of their husbands who traveled to the town of Moshi for work. All of these women face hardships, but many of these women’s lives were impacted due to HIV/AIDS. Continue Reading »

After visiting Dr. Suniti’s model hospital that has taken care of 12,000 HIV patients, I rushed back to the Accord Hotel to have a lunch meeting with Dr. N.M. Samuel. I was introduced to Dr. N.M. Samuel through Bob Bilheimer, the producer and director of the HIV/AIDS documentary film, A Closer Walk. Due to limited time in Chennai, I regrettably was unable to visit Dr. Sam’s hospital in Namakkal, 300 km from Chennai. Continue Reading »

Located in southeast India, Chennai is the largest metropolitan area in southern India. It is known for its effectiveness in combating HIV/AIDS. Curious about how the local community and doctors are tackling the epidemic, I visited a nearby hospital and two doctors known for their community-based response to treatment. Continue Reading »

Greetings from Singapore!

I am here to participate in the Asia Society’s Asia 21 Young Leaders Summit. The most exciting part of the program is meeting with social entrepreneurs from all over Asia. In particular, I would like to share with you the work of one successful leader I met and his transformative work in scaling up prevention programs for AIDS orphans in China. Continue Reading »