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Launching the Unleashed Women Leaders Initiative

March 7, 2011

On this, the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day, The Hunger Project (THP) is excited to announce the formal launching of the Unleashed Women Leaders Initiative — a new multi-year funding initiative to focus our attention and resources on the fact that empowering women’s leadership is the key to ending hunger.

The Hunger Project means it when we say that developing the leadership of women is the key to ending hunger.

We have found that by empowering women:

  • Families are healthier.
  • More children go to school, and girls stay in school.
  • Child marriages are stopped.
  • Crimes against women diminish as rapists and other perpetrators of violence are brought to justice.
  • Gender attitudes and behaviors that fuel the spread of HIV/AIDS are confronted and transformed.
  • Corruption is reduced.
  • Villagers are mobilized to deal with climate change.
  • Agricultural productivity improves and incomes increase.
  • A greater share of family income is devoted to child nutrition and education.

Our focus is on empowering women leaders. Through our strategies, THP has trained and supported:

  • 95,000 elected women village leaders in India;
  • 50,000 women volunteer “animators” in Bangladesh;
  • 3,000 women “barefoot lawyers” in Bangladesh and across our epicenters in Africa;
  • 35,000 women utilizing financial services at epicenter banks; and
  • Networks of thousands of indigenous women leaders in South America.

These women are transforming the development agenda. They are highly visible role models, carving out a new possibility for women in thousands of villages.

How can you become part of the Unleashed Women Leaders Initiative?

The Unleashed Women Leaders Initiative has been created to secure long-term, sustainable funding for our work with courageous, rural women living in some of the most difficult circumstances and to help them succeed in ending hunger in their communities.

The entry level to participate in this Initiative is $10,000 per year for a period of three years. Investing at even higher levels ($25,000, $50,000, $100,000) will make an even greater impact.

We invite you to join our 23 “founding investors” who have already committed a total of $1.45 million over the next three years. Our goal is to raise $5 million or more in the first phase of this Initiative.

For further information or to join the Unleashed Women Leaders Initiative, contact Jim Whitton, Regional Director at jw@thp-transfer.flywheelsites.com.

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March 7, 2011