In the beginning, there was an Entity which moved about in the blackness of space. It was soft and shapeless like molten lava. The Lakota people called it Iyan Tokaheya (The First Stone).

At one point in time, Iyan Tokaheya decided to create something beautiful from himself, so he turned himself inside out and covered himself all about. This is where selfishness originated from. For once he started creation, he had to satisfy selfish desires for everything that was created after that. It is here where we acknowledge that selfishness is a natural occurrence.

As he did this, his blood came out and his blood was blue. This is where we get our water from, and so it is sacred. And in this water is the spirit of our women. Her name is Woope. Because she is created from the blood of god, she is closest to god and is therefore sacred. Woope is the keeper of the laws of god.

Woope took the water in her hands, threw them into the heavens and created the stars. Thus, what is on Earth is also in the heavens, and a Lakota belief that we are related to the star people.

As Iyan Tokaheya began to create everything that is, he began to harden and so the world was born, half Earth, half Water.

In Lakota, the word “Woope” also refers to the proper way to behave, or the code of conduct for a respectful and peaceful lifestyle that the Lakota traditionally follow. We can see how central the female figure is in this creation story and also in their culture, and because women of subsequent generations are representations of Woope, they are to be treated with equal amounts of reverence and respect. Sadly, generations of turmoil have led this esteemed view of women somewhat astray. Today, we see unprecedented levels of domestic violence, rape, and sexual assaults in the Lakota communities. In fact, Native American women experience the highest rate of violence of any group in the United States. Perhaps what is needed to remedy this devastating problem now is a retrospective eye on the given situation, to take a step back to their spiritual past.

[The story in italics is adapted from “The Creation Story of the Lakota” by Lawrence Swallow]

Women play many pivotal roles in Uta: mother (to many), teacher, caretaker, wife, aunt, sister, friend. In fact, when you walk around Uta, you will see women carrying out the daily work of the village, keeping things going, running the show. In every book that I have read about social enterprise, and in many of microcredit’s success stories, women come up again and again as the agents through which to effect social change and market development. Organizing groups of women to form microfinance groups or to start small businesses has proved to be extremely effective and successful at combating extreme poverty and its effects (illiteracy, malnutrition, susceptibility to disease, unemployment, orphanage, the list goes on). The Bakery Project aims help the women that it employs attain financial independence and therefore empowerment. The project will encourage women to organize around ideas and form groups. These groups will then provide support systems and forums for creativity and idea-sharing for those involved as well as providing examples of entrepreneurship for other women in the village.

By tapping into one of Uta’s main assets, the strength and intelligence of its women, the Bakery Project will be powered by a very sustainable source of energy. I am very excited to be a part of a program that not only empowers women but also derives its power from women. (And if you ever get a chance to taste one of Doris’ biscuits, you will understand a whole new definition of the power of baking!).  The Bakery Project will help mothers get their children much-needed nutrients through its products, and it will also develop a program that educates women and their children about nutrition.  The Project meets at an intersection of health, education, and gender issues, providing me with the opportunity to join my fellow women in the pursuit of a more equal South Africa and world.

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My mother taught me change often comes in small packages but are no less significant…

In life, we often come upon those rare individuals that have the unique mixture of a will to preserve, an intellect with foresight, and an energy that inspires. For those of us who have the even rarer fortune to have those individuals as family, public service often becomes a lifestyle construed as easy. This is a reminder to me that change is not something that happens casually.

In the middle of the night, my grandmother took her two young sons and fled Abu Diab Ghairb, a small rural village of Qena in Upper Egypt, so they could have a better life in Cairo. She then called my grandfather and told him to come to Cairo as she was not going back. Without this remarkably courageous and selfless act from one woman in the 1950s when women’s rights in the Middle East was not even in the womb, my father would have never reached the unattainable, and America, for me, would have been a distant dream. This is a story of small yet significant victories by the women in my life and in my history, often quietly done in the shadows of where history-changing moments are thought to be made. My mother is its living embodiment.

When my mother first arrived in the US, she could not speak any English and used to go to the crafts fairs in Virginia Highlands, Atlanta just to practice. When she started as a graduate student, she lived on a $450/month graduate student stipend that her and my father shared. For extra income and to save money, she used to knit curtains that she sold in Alabama and used to knit all my father’s clothes and my baby clothes.

She went through doctoral qualifying exams while pregnant with my sister and yet became only the second foreign-born woman to become a Zonta International Amelia Earhart Fellow, the only international fellowship for women pursuing aerospace sciences. Now, she is the Director of the Women in Engineering program at Georgia Tech, a college professor, and a former finalist for Atlanta Woman of the Year in Technology. She took Georgia Tech from barely having a Women in Engineering program to being the nation’s leading producer of female engineers.

During these struggles of a new young female American immigrant, she fondly remembers that her one splurge was going to Pizza Hut once a month. I think that really typifies my mother: she has the unique ability to take toils and tears and make them into tributes. She made her sacrifices for a single dream: better opportunities for her unborn children, my sister Laura and me. She had the faith to continue a race in which she knew she was miles behind so her unknown children could start on the same line as everyone else. I strive everyday to have that same faith for my own unborn children and to do it with her smile.

Change and public service is often a very lonely road, and everyday when I think about giving up, I think of her. If it is particularly difficult, I call her. If it is especially unbearable, I hug her or I hug the air if she is not around, hoping her warmth and courage will somehow transfer.

As another Mother’s Day approaches, I get the extraordinary privilege of remembering that I was there for the first one. To say with pride that I have a mom, that I am her son and that her example sustains me.

Grand ideas are easy to come by, but seeing them through is less so. Lily Muldoon’s grand idea involved overhauling the health, sanitation and education systems of Kayafungo, a sprawling series of 25 villages in Kenya comprised of 40,000 people. Her quest to see that idea come to fruition led her on an odyssey that would change her life forever. Continue reading the article…

In honor of SMRC’s “Tribute to Women”, I have dedicated this blog post to updates about how the Uta Community Center will target women specifically.  In Uta there is no industry.  Uta has no farming so very few people have jobs and of those that do, they are hours away and people will live at the jobs. Many women are out of work and live at home, alone with their children, while their husbands work away from Uta.  Women who don’t have jobs still have a huge responsibility to complete domestic work and raise their children.  Those women that do have jobs have the double burden of the domestic work while also earning money.  This means that women in Uta are often overworked retrieving water, cooking for their families, looking after their children and with the added stress of poverty this is something to recognize and commend.

For the strong, admirable women of Uta we want to provide something special through the Uta Community Center.  There are a few informal women’s groups in Uta that could benefit from the community center by creating projects, holding meetings and educational workshops.  We want to target women specifically because they are so involved in their children’s lives that offering education workshops to them will also benefit their children.  Also women are the most at risk for contracting HIV/AIDS and also the least likely to have access to antiretroviral treatment.  AIDS prevention in South Africa frequently encourages condom use, minimization of partners and treatment of STIs.  These three strategies are very important to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS but aren’t always possible for women who have little power to control sexual encounters, especially with their husbands.  If the Uta Community Center can empower the women of Uta through education (HIV/AIDS prevention, nutrition education, academic education etc.), then perhaps the women of Uta can have a chance to defend themselves against a deadly virus and help alleviate the burden of poverty and in-access to public services.

Women of Uta also have the capacity to create their own projects to earn extra money for their families. The community center will run a micro-finance program in which women can apply for small loans to start up projects in their community.  This will empower women by providing a way for them to earn their own money.

The women of Uta deserve this opportunity to find equality within their homes and their communities, and the Uta Community Center is dedicated to finding ways to achieve this goal.

There is a photograph that travelers inevitably take when they go to a developing country — a picture of a woman carrying a large container of water on her head. The woman’s posture is ramrod straight, the envy of runway models everywhere, and her face rarely betrays the amount of effort and strength this task involves. Most times this photo is taken because it is a stunning and moving image of a woman’s strength and beauty. Read the full article here.

In the United States today, more women than men attend college.  The classic gender barrier in education is being worn away as increasingly women are pursuing higher degrees, often outperforming their male counterparts.  Little girls dream of not only becoming mothers but of becoming doctors and lawyers and financial analysts (well, maybe neither little girls or boys dream of becoming financial analysts, but you get the picture.)  Girls in the Manyeleti community share these same dreams.  Last summer when working to choose a 7th grade girl to be the recipient of a scholarship to attend a private high school, David and I interviewed many at the top of their class.  The girls shared big dreams with us; wanting to go to university, wanting to improve their English, wanting to become nurses and lawyers.

Yet for the majority of these girls, their dreams are not a reality.  The lack of opportunities in the community to become employed or attend university is an even greater barrier for female students than their male counterparts.  While working with high school students in Manyeleti we began to notice a lack of motivation, especially among females.  Without opportunities for the future, they often lose incentive to continue with their studies, to continue working hard.  You see an increase in girls dropping out of high school to become teenage mothers.  Of the girls that stay in high school there is often a lack of involvement.  For example, as Global Development Interns last summer, we worked with a team of about ten to twelve high school students from the community.  Only two of them were girls.  Clearly there are exceptions, for example girls in the community like Pinky, going above and beyond, demonstrating tremendous potential in everything they do.  But how to motivate the rest of them, how to create an environment that leads girls to dream big and continue their education, is a challenge that we continue to face.