A Tribute to Women on International Women's Day

Kate Sheppard

100 years ago on March 8th 1911, women from around the world took to the streets to demand the right the vote, the right to equal wages, and the right to an education.

Great strides have been made in all of these areas by some courageous women.  A patriotic nod goes to Kate Sheppard who helped New Zealand become the first self governing country to give women the vote in 1893.

The race is not yet over and there are battles yet to be won.

As Oxfam recently pointed out, the world's ills disproportionally affect females:

• Women produce the majority of the world’s food but rarely own the land they farm.
  In Sub Saharan African women produce 80 per cent of the household food but they only own one per cent of the land.
  
• Every minute a woman with no medical care dies in pregnancy or childbirth.
  The amount of money spent in the erectile dysfunction market is four times greater than the amount spent on maternal and newborn health in poor countries.
  
• Women make up 80 per cent  of climate refugees - 20 million of the 26 million people estimated to have been displaced by climate change are women.
  
• Two-thirds of the children denied school are girls and 64 percent of the world’s illiterate adults are women

The majority of Meaningful Volunteer's programs target women in developing countries:  It is hard to be a rurally poor Ugandan man. It is even hard to be a rurally poor Ugandan women.

I am in constant amazement at the successes made by Meaningful Volunteer's female volunteers.  They've rolled out natural family planning methods to fifteen or so villages in the Philippines, taught for countless hours in classrooms around the developing world, and spearheaded fair trade projects.

This coming June we have a whole swagger of volunteers heading to Uganda to head up mosquito net programs, build a solar-powered school building, start a fair trade project, and teach those who have been denied an education.  At present we have three males (including myself) and nine females.  Women are awesome!  Females who strive for equality with men lack ambition.  Time to step up guys!

A final nod-of-the-head and tip-of-the-hat goes to the awesome female staff at Meaningful Volunteer: Eden, Mimi, Anne, and Megin.  You're all fantastic and I credit all of you for the success of Meaningful Volunteer.