Happy International Women's Day! The theme this year is 'Empower rural women--End hunger and poverty'. This sounds simple enough but the job is tremendous and the thought of all the work to do feels very overwhelming! My view of empowerment is to treat these women as business partners. The women that Proud Mary works with in Mali and Guatemala are just that...partners. By providing a fair wage and market access for quality, beautiful, artisanal goods we can help them expand their business so they can support themselves. It's so important to me not to pity these women but to respect their craft and talent and hopefully have them respect me and how I run my business. Mutual respect and pride=empowerment.
Check out these sites celebrating Women's Day! UN, International Women's Day, Women for Women International.
(photo from here)