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New Year, New Hope   
Dec. 29, 2008 – Hope is a powerful word. Hope is what inspires people to push forward and make changes in spite of the seemingly insurmountable odds. For most women and girls, the odds are stacked against them from the day they are born. Women and girls make up three fifths of the world’s poorest people. Of the 960 million illiterate adults in the world, women comprise two thirds. And, half a million women die during pregnancy and childbirth each year. Despite these numbers, hope for the future is resilient and contagious. CEDPA alumni around the world are working in their communities to keep hope alive. Carola Conde Bonfil, a CEDPA alumna from Mexico, offers hope to her clients from some of the poorest areas in Mexico through the organization Ámbito Productivo. Carola understands the barriers women in these areas face and the importance of the microcredits the organization provides to help them begin their own small businesses. Evalina Sangui Ndombele, a CEDPA alumna from Angola, spreads hope in her community as an adult educator for and the president of Amusa-Alegria/Rede Mulher Angolana (Happiness Angolan Women’s Network). The women she has helped can now write their own names, conduct their own businesses and maintain their own accounts. The biggest source of pride for Evalina is when she sees the business signs the women write themselves. In Papua New Guinea, hope blooms through Margaret Rombuk. Margaret, a graduate of one of CEDPA’s Global Women in Management workshops, believes that getting correct information to women is vital to saving lives. Her organization Susu Mama helps introduce women to proper breastfeeding practices, the appropriate diets for babies and provides information on family planning and immunizations.
CEDPA has sown seeds of hope around the world for over thirty years. With plans for ten workshops in 2009, there will be hundreds of newly trained CEDPA graduates, like Carola, Evalina and Margaret, joining the more than 5200 confident and highly-skilled alumni working to improve the lives of people within their communities. CEDPA’s well established programs in girls’ education and youth development; reproductive health and HIV/AIDS and democracy and governance will also progress and grow in 2009. In southern Africa, CEDPA will expand its afterschool program, Towards a Better Future, applying its strategic approach to increase opportunities for out-of-school youth. CEDPA will continue to provide proven advocacy and educational programs in India promoting safe motherhood and reproductive health in the new year. The programs will save women’s lives by informing them about reproductive health and their rights. CEDPA will build on its reputation for excellent programming in Nigeria by exploring opportunities to link its reproductive health, safe motherhood and HIV programming providing more comprehensive information and services to women, adolescents, families and communities. And in Nepal, CEDPA’s partnership with WomenAct will assure women’s greater participation in governance. Although the work has advanced, much more needs to be done to ensure women are aware of their rights and how to actualize them in their own lives. These are only a few of CEDPA’s many high-performing programs that provide women with the tools to improve their lives, families and communities, encouraging hope in 2009 and beyond. Learn more about CEDPA’s programs. |
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