Sheila C. Johnson
Founder of BET, Global Ambassador for CARE International Posted March 3, 2009 |
08:09 PM (EST)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheila-c-johnson/on-international-womens-d_b_17162\
0.html
On International Women's Day, Let's Make a Powerful Noise

As we prepare to celebrate International Women's Day on March 8th, consider the
state of the world's women.
Seventy percent of the poorest people living in the world today are women and
girls. Women work two-thirds of the world's working hours, yet they earn just 10
percent of the income. Two-thirds of the adults worldwide who cannot read are
women, and two-thirds of the children who do not attend school are girls. Every
minute of every day, a woman somewhere dies from complications due to pregnancy
and childbirth. And in many communities, women are still the legal property of
their fathers and husbands.

There are many factors that sustain poverty, but one factor that is common to
poverty everywhere is the inequality of women and girls. Counterintuitive as it
may seem, there is something hopeful in this. Because women are the predominant
victims of poverty, they are also the greatest untapped resource the world has
in the fight against global poverty.

We know that in Africa, for example, children of mothers who receive just five
years of primary education are 40 percent more likely to make it beyond the age
of 50. A women with seven or more years of education has 2.2 fewer children and
marries four years later. And one extra year of education beyond the average
increases a young woman's eventual wages by more than 10 percent. A woman whose
business earns money, or whose savings earn interest, invests 90 percent of it
into her family.

Woman are the thread that holds together the fabric of society. And if we are
ever going to fix the problems of the world -- both here and abroad -- we are
going to do it on the backs of strong, powerful women.

If you start to change women's lives, there is a virtuous cycle that begins to
improve everything else. I am more convinced than ever that the more women hear
stories about other women, the more they will step up and help other women.

That is why, as a Global Ambassador for CARE International, and with the help of
CARE's videographers, we set out to find examples of women finding their voices,
changing their own lives, and changing the future in the process. We found
stories everywhere.

In the slums of Bamako, Mali, we found Jacqueline Dembele, working to save girls
from forced labor, abusive husbands, and illiteracy.

In Northern Vietnam, we found Bui My Hanh, who only learned that she had
contracted HIV only after her husband and five-year-old daughter died from AIDS.
She became an AIDS activist, educating people about the disease, and creating
support groups for people living with HIV/AIDS in a place where the disease is
regarded as a social evil.

In Bosnia, we found Nada Markovic, a single mother raising three girls, a
survivor of the mass genocide of the Bosnian War who started a women's
association that helps families put aside their ethnic differences to rebuild
their communities.

These women do not speak the same language, they don't look alike, and if we
hadn't put them into the same documentary film, A Powerful Noise, they would
never have encountered one another.

But they share one thing. In finding their individual power, they are helping
empower communities and, hopefully, the generation that will follow.

On March 5th, A Powerful Noise will be shown simultaneously in 450 theaters
across America. It will be followed by a panel discussion with leading thinkers
on women and poverty. At www.apowerfulnoise.org, you can find ways to join the
effort to empower women, as an advocate, as a volunteer, or simply through
public displays of support.

In 2006, I traveled to Guatemala and visited a program that helps young women
develop leadership skills. At the start of the program, women were encouraged to
look in a mirror and explain what they saw. One woman after another said, "I see
nothing. I see nothing." At the end of the program they looked in the mirror
again. This time they saw something. One after another said, "I see a woman with
a future. I see a partner. I see a mother. I see who I am, regardless of what
anyone says."

Imagine the world we can create when millions -- indeed, billions -- of women
can make statements like that. These are women who have the power to change the
world. We have the power to help them do it.

Sheila C. Johnson, a founder of Black Entertainment Television, is a Global
Ambassador for CARE International.


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