Friends:
I started this project for the 2011 San Francisco Marathon. Although that marathon has come and gone, the need remains.  After you read this amazing group's story, below, and watch the video (narrated by Meryl Streep), please send a donation. Large or small -- it'll all go towards empowering women and changing their world...and ours. Many thanks to you!

From the Women for Women website (www.womenforwomen.org):

Women for Women International works with socially excluded women in eight countries where war and conflict have devastated lives and communities. Each woman we serve has her own story–some of loved ones murdered, and others of physical and emotional trauma. Most have endured a struggle for survival.

When we enroll women in our program, they learn job skills and receive business training so they can earn a living. They come to understand their rights and how to fight for those rights in their homes, communities and nations.

Equipped with job-skills training and basic business education, along with an awareness of their rights, women go on to become leaders in their communities, inspiring other women to follow in their steps. These two elements appear throughout WfWI's programming and help generate our programs' key outcomes:

1. Women sustain an income: Income and asset management
2. Women are well: Awareness, protection and prevention
3. Women are decision-makers: Family and community decision-making
4. Women have social networks and safety nets: Solidarity for support and protection

When these four key outcomes are met, women experience lasting change and are positioned to be active citizens. Active citizenship is a when a woman engages socially, civically and economically for the betterment of her family and community. As active citizens, woman can become leaders of community change that lead to peaceful and stable societies.

Our programs are organized into three stages as women increase their access to resources and knowledge:

1. Creating Awareness: Improving women's access to knowledge about their value and the importance of women's rights and societal roles.

2. Promoting Behavior Change: Encouraging a woman's willingness to actively make decisions in her family and community, apply knowledge to maintain physical and psychological wellness, to form or join women's and community groups and take advantage of economic opportunities.

3. Enabling Action: Providing opportunities to develop personal and group plans for action to allow women to become active citizens individually and in solidarity with other women. In addition, women are provided with support and access to essential services such as microcredit loans, legal assistance, cooperative and employment opportunities and social networks.