Women and children make up the majority of people in the world who live on less than $1 a day. Women are often responsible for providing for the family and keeping them healthy, yet, tragically, they often eat last and eat least. However, if this fragile population is given the chance to realize their full potential, they have the power to lift their communities and, indeed, entire countries out of poverty.

Far too often, global decisions about poverty and developing countries are made without accounting for the needs of women and girls. Without the opportunity to learn skills like reading and writing, it is nearly impossible for them to escape the cycle of poverty.

So what’s the solution?

Women Thrive Worldwide believes that the solution lies in raising women’s voices. Their staff works every day to ensure that the United States is investing in women and girls around the world and listening to what they have to say when it comes to making decisions on the global level by working with grassroots women’s organizations from Afghanistan to the Philippines to Zambia as well as dozens of other countries.

Women Thrive Worldwide purports that real change happens when women and girls are at the table and able to talk about what’s most important to them — issues such as freedom from violence, access to a quality education, and economic opportunity to lift their families out of poverty.

The organizations’s goal is to help bring the voices of women and girls around the world into discussions about the policies that impact their lives. Only then can their needs, priorities, and concerns be meaningfully addressed and effective solutions adopted to reduce poverty at the local level.

– Katie Brockman

Source: Huffington Post
Photo: Women Thrive