October 25th

I’m not sure where to start:) I’ve been busy with so many fun and good things. My favorite is that we are close to opening our Beauty Salons (two) I’m starting the training on facials and make overs on Monday. The place is cute and is right next to a Pool Hall. Maybe the women can get the men to play pool and stay longer for their beauty treatments.

Raising chickens is a little more difficult than expected. The current system is discouraging chicken production in order to reduce supply and raise prices. So…… we’ve been to government offices everyday. This time we are lucky. The head of our village LOVES our project and we have been able to do a little name dropping. Nice! Now what should take one afternoon will only take several months. But… it’s like going on a diet. You can’t loose all the weight in one day, but if you don’t try it will be the same a year later.

I’ve spent lots of time with a French group call Femmes Solitare. They are a women’s group, 62 years old and 26,000 members. It’s been so nice to hear others with the same dreams and goals as ours.

We’re also working on a shower project with the French Embassy where it will be a bit like a community center. All the waste will be converted to Bio Gas. I do with I had paid more attention in my Science classes. Who would have guessed?

I’m still getting lots of media coverage and I am doing a television special on Saturday. Most important is seeing the women. You can’t imagine how it feels to walk in on a big group of ladies making baskets, learning to bead, learning new math skills and hearing the laughter of hope.
October 19th:

I’ve been leading a wild life! On Monday I spent the day with a wonderful journalist named Peter. He is with Voice of America then I headed out to be interviewed by Ethiopian Television for their news program. The next day a beautiful, smart, gifted,…..woman named Penny and her team filmed a documentary for us. I’ll let you know what happens and when we can see the stories.

On Thursday I got to clean my house with Pine Sol so I felt so much better. Today I’m busy in the office.

We met with a great Ethiopian man, Mengustu. He is the head of our sub-city. (the most powerful arm of the government for every day life here) He has been such a friend to us and we are in the process of opening our chicken farm. The ladies have to be trained, we need to prove we have the money and then we are in business. We’ve got our Chicken Land. I’ve learned so much about chickens and now wish I had paid more attention to my father when we had chickens at our home. Although he was a businessman he never wanted to give up his farmer roots. I always knew that I was much too glamorous to want to be around chickens. And here I am…..

Another project we’ve just opened is sewing training. We hired a teacher to come everyday. She will start with hand sewing and then advance to the machines that have been donated to us. Now maybe I should sit in on the class and learn how to sew my own buttons on. I tried to learn to sew when my children were little but decided that all I was doing was teaching them bad words.

Today I’ve been invited for lunch at the French Embassy and then I have an interview with BBC.

Tomorrow I’ll be meeting with some people from the Rotary Club in Canada. Then….. I think it will be the right time to actually get our Beauty Salons opened. I think you know this is my favorite part of our project.

I’m overwhelmed with the feeling that we have been able to take the lowest women in this society, teach them literacy skills, then entrepreneurship skills, finally creativity and now they are almost strong enough to be on their own. Wow!

I’ve put a copy of our Phase II Policies because I’ve had a few people ask me to explain more. I hope this helps.

Project Description:

Phase II is a project of Women for Women Foundation, Inc. It is especially designed for those women who have suffered Obstetric Fistula, have had completed surgery or multiple surgeries and either because of the severity of the Fistula or other circumstances they are unable to return to their villages.

Our organization’s goal is to provide a one year program to empower these women with the skills and self confidence to begin a new life on their own.

Project Structure:

Each woman is screened to ensure that she has completed her Fistula treatment or has a distant appointment for surgery. Then they are grouped in “small houses” of four women each this is their new family structure. The initial part of training includes daily attendance at an “informal learning center” where they are taught basic literacy skills, math skills, health information, and are encouraged to begin their personal skills assessment. We also ensure they understand personal hygiene to minimize the possibility of the smells commonly associated with Fistula.

Each “small house” is joined together with three or four more “small houses” to form a community. Often these women form an association to spread out costs even further. Each woman is given a 200 ETB per month. She is expected to contribute this amount to the family. The women learn how to budget, save, pay for medical expense, deposit money in the bank, open small businesses, and much more.

Her next step is to begin training while earning. Although there are many training programs available, our experience has indicated that entrepreneurship is the most successful way to teach women creative ideas to earn more money.

Any money she makes is hers to do with as she likes. She is responsible to pay the cost for her part of the house rent.

Project Goals:

We expect each woman to be self supporting after her graduation one year after her entrance into this program. This means that she is expected to contribute 200 ETB she has earned by herself to family expenses. Again any money earned over this amount is hers to do with as she wishes. After graduation the group of four moves into another house where they can afford the rent. Although they receive no more money from Women for Women they are always part of our community and can attend training, workshops, etc. and are always invited for Holidays or Sunday lunch. Our staff remains available for coaching and encouragement.

Our further goal is that each woman begins to recognize how special she is and begins to discover how many talents she really does have.

Project Culture:

We expect each woman to treat others as she would like to be treated. To realize that she has been offered an unusual opportunity and to make the best of it both for herself and as an example to her neighborhood resulting in a positive impact on Ethiopia.