myMADRE

This Mother's Day, Celebrate Activism Across Generations

Every day here at MADRE, we hear incredible stories of the commitment of women and girls to build better lives for themselves, for their families and for communities worldwide. We hear them from our sister organizations, and we hear them from the many MADRE supporters – like you – who make our work possible.

On this Mother’s Day, I have to share one story with you, about a six-year-old girl named Mora. We recently heard from her mother Violeta, a longtime MADRE supporter, who shared with us an example of how our commitment to change the world is passed down through the generations.

Mora had learned about the devastation triggered by the earthquake in Haiti and about the dangerous conditions that girls like her and their families were forced to confront. Like her mother, she was determined to show her support.

She took a cardboard box and placed it near the door of her home. With small strips of blue tape, she attached a label that said “Put money for Haiti. Thank you. Plese do it for Haiti.” When people entered, she insisted that they contribute, and she sent the money that she raised to MADRE to help support our work with Haitian women and families.

Thank you, Mora! And thank you, Violeta, for all of your support and for telling us about your incredible daughter!

You can get involved, too! Follow Mora’s example and start your own collection drive for MADRE’s Helping Hands program today.

Visiting Bibi Aisha

Last week, I visited the organization Women for Afghan Women to meet Bibi Aisha. Bibi is a 20-year old Afghan woman, who was married off at the age of 12 to an abusive Taliban fighter. MADRE first told Bibi's story in May of 2010, as one of several Afghan women whose stories tell of terrible brutality...but also of survival. Bibi was one of the women for whom MADRE activated our Afghan Women's Survival Fund to help her receive emergency shelter.

Today, Bibi is in the United States, working with Women for Afghan Women, learning English and making plans to start her own small business to generate income.

We had heard that Bibi excels at making bead jewelry. We also know that she loves to sew. With materials donated to MADRE’s Helping Hands program, I brought Bibi fabric, spools of thread, and beads. Bibi’s face immediately lit up when I handed her the gifts. It was wonderful to see what a powerful impact our Helping Hands program makes in the lives of the women we reach.

Thank you to our donors, who make this extremely valuable work possible.

Bibi Aisha is an amazingly courageous and resilient woman. She is an inspiration for women worldwide, and we wish her a speedy recovery and the best of health.

Helping Hands Program Brings Crucial Goods to Haiti and Guatemala

MADRE staff members and Executive Director Yifat Susskind recently went to visit our sister organizations in Haiti and Guatemala: KOFAVIV, the Barcenas Women’s Workers Committee and Muixil. We shared some of the updates from those trips on this blog. And thanks to the generosity of our supporters, we were able to bring donations to all three sister organizations through our Helping Hands program.

For our partners in Haiti, MADRE staff brought flashlights and whistles, two crucial tools for combating rape in the camps, where lighting and security is lacking. Blowing a whistle can deter a potential attacker, and flashlights make women less vulnerable to violence at night. We also sent children’s clothing, condoms and feminine hygiene products.

For our partners in Guatemala, we sent oral hygiene products, feminine hygiene products, a fantastic assortment of soaps and shower gels generously donated by LUSH and makeup products generously donated by L’Bel USA. The makeup was donated as part of our ‘Beauty Inside and Out Campaign,’ which allows Barcenas to distribute makeup as incentive to attend their health fairs, where they provide crucial reproductive health services to women and girls.

Thanks to all of you who donated to MADRE’s Helping Hands program!

In Fight Against Femicide, Whistles Win

Diana and Lisa’s recent trip to Haiti reminded us of the remarkable power in a simple tool: a plastic whistle.  During their visit, women from KOFAVIV, an organization founded by and for rape survivors, gathered in circles, singing, clapping, and dancing in place as brightly-colored whistles bounced from lanyards around their necks.  The whistles, which the women blow in three long bursts to alert each other of attack, are a security lifeline in camp residents’ fight against a continuing epidemic of sexual violence.

“Personally,” said one, “I feel like I am a strong, fearless woman when I have my whistle, especially when other women are responding with their own whistle.  We stand tall to run after these men who think they can take control.”  Women and girls of all ages, many of whom lost family members and support systems in the devastating quake, often face  isolated walks on unlit paths patrolled by violent gangs, and recent reports (including MADRE’s own, co-authored with IJDH) also list numerous incidents of attackers entering their tents or dragging them off in broad daylight.  Yet camp residents repeat that simple whistles and flashlights continue to play a key role in their independently-formed, women-run security patrols’ success against the violence.

Our new initiative to collect and distribute these lifesaving tools dovetails with MADRE’s continuing campaign to bring more of those same flashlights and whistles to the women of Guatemala. There, gender-motivated violence has reached such epidemic levels -- 4,000 women murdered in the last ten years, and the number continues to rise -- that feminist and human rights workers around the world have recognized it as a strategy of “femicide”.  In the face of a similar lack of police protection and government intervention, flashlights and whistles collected and sent by our Helping Hands team provide Guatemalan women with the power to take back their own right to security.

We know that these are only temporary measures. More lasting solutions must come from government policies that prioritize ending violence against women. They must come from post-disaster reconstruction policies that place women's voices at the center. But we also know that whistles can save women's lives today. Click here or email us at helpinghands@madre.org to find out more.

Record Shipment to Nicaragua Targets Women’s Daily Needs

One of my first and most exciting tasks since coming on board as MADRE’s new Helping Hands Coordinator was the coordination of one of our largest shipments of humanitarian aid supplies to date.  These 198 large boxes each brimmed with items for which our sister organizations in Nicaragua have expressed a direct, specific need.  Thanks to MADRE donors, members, friends, interns, and volunteers for your constant support!

The shipment’s contents ranged from such vital everyday items as contacts, eyeglasses, condoms, lubricant, school supplies, and toys to large pieces of medical equipment identified by sister organizations CADPI and Wangki Tangni as particularly useful to women and their families in the North Atlantic region of Nicaragua.  These included nebulizers, crutches, walkers, an intravenous machine, portable toilets, shower chairs, adult diapers for the elderly, and hundreds of assorted medications and first-aid supplies.  

We were also able to send beautiful lengths of leather, silk, polyester, and cotton for the Wangki Tangni Women’s Sewing Collective, an income-generating cooperative made up of 35 Indigenous Miskito women.  The Collective’s garment-making classes significantly expand local women’s resources by empowering them to create clothing for their own families and independent income from sales at local markets and craft fairs.  My thanks again to everyone who helped make this shipment possible; every item in those 198 boxes directly enables women not only to face immediate crises in their communities but to challenge the continuing structures that deny them their basic rights.

Helping Hands Campaign Targets Violence in Haiti

Space around MADRE's conference table was tightly packed but quiet a few weeks ago as staff, volunteers, and interns leaned in to hear our Haitian partner Eramithe Delva tell her story.  Eramithe’s account detailed not only the epidemic of sexual violence against women and children across hundreds of Haitian refugee camps but also new avenues to safety now being carved out by women themselves – distributing whistles and flashlights to help women and girls deter rapists, organizing volunteer watch groups, guiding rape survivors to medical services and more.

Eramithe is one of the leaders of KOFAVIV, a MADRE partner and a grassroots organization that brings rape survivors together to share stories and resources and to demand justice and accountability. Before the earthquake, KOFAVIV ran a women’s clinic that offered essential services to rape survivors, but that was destroyed in the quake.  With support from MADRE, KOFAVIV will soon open a new clinic and women’s shelter in Port-au-Prince at a central location away from the camps, providing health care, education, and safe living arrangements for displaced women.

Eramithe’s harrowing stories -- of women and children routinely attacked while walking unlit, isolated paths to distant bathroom facilities, of having to bathe in open view of men all around them, of attackers using single knife-strokes to enter the flimsy plastic tents where women sleep, of near-total lack of police presence -- showed a clear connection between the constant state of danger endured by women in the camps and the range of widely-available household objects that can empower them with significantly more security.  

To that end, our Helping Hands program was able to send items specifically requested by KOFAVIV: whistles, flashlights, batteries, condoms, first aid supplies, toys, blankets, and clothing.  We'll continue collecting these items during the coming months, working to put simple, practical tools in our Haitian sisters' hands.

At the same time, we are working to create more systemic solutions, including installing lights in the camps and instituting security patrols, and to demand that women’s human rights be recognized as a priority.  But women in the camps cannot wait, and KOFAVIV’s efforts help to save lives today.

A Fond Farewell

I'm writing this entry with mixed feelings. After nearly three years at MADRE, I'm saying goodbye. I'm applying to graduate programs for next fall, and I've decided to use the next year as an opportunity to travel and volunteer abroad. And though I'm extremely excited about this decision and my upcoming adventures, I'm also sad to be leaving my role as MADRE's Website and Online Membership Coordinator. 

I've had an amazing few years here. I've met incredible people and learned so much about women's human rights and grassroots organizing - not to mention nonprofit development and website management. MADRE is truly an incredible organization, and I feel privileged to have been a part of such important work.

Now, as I leave my staff position, I look forward to my new role as a MADRE member and volunteer. Having heard - and written - so much about our partners, I'm excited that I'll actually have the chance to meet with some of them and see the projects in action. 

In late September, I head for Guatemala, and while I'm there, I'll be visiting MADRE's partner organizations, the Women Workers' Committee and Muixil. I'll be writing updates for MADRE's blog from Guatemala, and I'll send pictures of both projects for you to see. 

And I plan to bring a gigantic bag of flashlights and whistles with me for the women of Barcenas. However, in order to do that, I need help from MADRE's amazing membership. Donate to MADRE's Helping Hands campaign or purchase an alternative gift from the webstore. Your contribution will fill my bag, thereby enhance women's security in the Barcenas community. 

If you have a large quantity of new flashlights or whistles that you can donate, please call us at 212-627-0444.

Before I sign off, I want to quickly introduce two newbies at MADRE. Mishael Najm, MADRE's new Helping Hands Coordinator and Administrative Assistant, came on as an intern six months ago and graduated to her new staff position a few weeks back. Rachel Giuliani, the Website and Online Membership Coordinator and my very capable replacement, is extremely new to MADRE, but I can already tell she'll do well. They will both be contributing to the blog in the coming weeks/months, and I know I'm looking forward to hearing from them.

And so with that, I'll wish you all farewell for now.

Photos: Delivering Flashlights and Whistles in Haiti

As promised in my past blog entry, I'm happy to finally be able to share a few of the photos we took when we delivered a package of donations -- including medical supplies, flashlights and whistles -- to our partners in Haiti, KOFAVIV.  Using these supplies, gathered through MADRE's Helping Hands program, they have been able to create local security measures that help prevent rapes in the camps for displaced people in Haiti.  They have also been able to provide for the basic needs of women and families.

(Click each photo below to enlarge.)

The women opened up the bag with the donations and began passing out the supplies to each other, so that they could distribute them in the camps. 

I passed the FlipCam to one of the KOFAVIV members, who then turned it to one of the members who began to explain how the whistles had been used to prevent rapes and to protect women.

Take Action on Earth Day: Help Indigenous Women Farmers

 

In light of Earth day, MADRE is sending a shipment of organic vegetable seeds to our partner organization,Wangki Tangni on the North Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, where three-quarters of the population suffers from malnutrition.

Climate change and rising ocean temperatures are causing intensified storms in Nicaragua, devastating farmers’ harvests and depleting local food sources.  This past November severe flooding from Hurricane Ida ruined crops at the time of harvest and washed away many of the seeds that could be used for next season.  As a result, local farmers need new seeds to plant this growing season.  That’s where you can help.    

MADRE would love to partner with you to provide Indigenous women farmers in Nicaragua with seeds for this growing season and to help raise awareness of the effects of climate change.  You can help by hosting a fundraising event to raise money for farmers to purchase seeds locally in Nicaragua.  We are also collecting donations of unexpired organic vegetable seeds appropriate for the ecosystem in the North Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. Please contact us for a list of species at (212) 627-0444.

Where to send donations:

MADRE
Attn: Helping Hands
121 West 27th Street Suite 301
New York, NY 10001

Helping Hands can pick up your donation in Manhattan if it is too large for you to mail, just call (212) 627-0444. You may also drop off your donation at the address above during our business hours: 9:30 am – 6:00 pm Monday through Friday.

 
 
 

 

Helping Hands Campaign: Empowering the Women of Tomorrow

MADRE’s sister organization in Kenya, the Indigenous Information Network (IIN), is working with the Kilgoris Girls’ School in the Transmara Area, Kenya to educate and shelter 400 young girls who are escaping Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) or forced marriages. The school has asked us to provide the girls with feminine hygiene and school supplies.  

More than anything, these girls want the chance to go to school. They know that education is the key to improving their own lives and for raising awareness about the rights of women and girls in their communities.

You can help these courageous girls by providing pencils, composition books, rulers, erasers, crayons, markers, chalk, and chalkboard erasers. Donations of pads, cleansing wipes, and OTC Tylenol/Midol are also needed.

If you don’t have the supplies to donate, but still want to make a contribution to these girls, make a monetary donation to help alleviate the costs of shipping supplies to Kenya.

How to Donate Supplies:

Simply mail your donation to:

MADRE
Attn: Helping Hands
121 West 27th Street Suite 301
New York, NY 10001

Helping Hands can pick up your donation in Manhattan if it is too large for you to mail. You may also drop off your donation at the address above during our business hours, 9:30 am – 6:00 pm.