Episode 328: A Powerful Conversation | Unyielding Light & Courage: The Reality of Women Running NGOs Today
In this episode of The Powerful Ladies Podcast, we sit down with inspiring women from around the globe who are leading transformative initiatives in their communities. From addressing gender inequality and fostering democracy in Syria to supporting orphans in Kenya and fighting for indigenous women's rights in Tanzania, these leaders share their incredible journeys, the challenges they face, and how they stay motivated. We discuss the impact of shrinking international aid, the need for structural change in philanthropy, and the profound effects of local female leadership. Join us as we delve into their stories and learn how we can all contribute to making a difference.
“ You’re changing communities from the ground up and to me that’s a beautiful way to use this life that we have. ”
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Naw K'nyaw Paw
Karen Women's Organization - KWO is a leading indigenous women’s organisation working in protection and our programs directly serve women, girls, children, and the most vulnerable people in our community. We promote women’s leadership, gender sensitivity and community ownership in all aspects of our work. After July, the food cut will happen and they don’t know where food or work will come from. Healthcare is also affected. No donors support, it’s a blow to the whole society. It’s becoming challenging.
Rajaa Altalli
Co Founder Center for Civil Society and Democracy -The Center for Civil Society and Democracy (CCSD) is a Syrian founded, independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization. CCSD has branches which support its work in the US, Turkey, and the Netherlands. CCSD seeks to build a stable and just society where peace and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms prevail. Support reach out to us on the website - Supporting 50 Syrian organizationsSyrian Dictatorship and Oppression
Consolata Achieng Norbert
Founder and Director of the Mango Tree Orphan Support Trust Kenya - The Mango Tree Orphan Support Trust Kenya, supports vulnerable communities through Education opportunities, Health promotion, Natural Resource Management and Promoting Livelihoods through their projects.
Maanda Ngoitiko
Co-Founder and Executive Director of Pastoral Women's Council - membership organisation that empowers women at the community-level to take control of their own development. PWC serves Ngorongoro, Longido and Monduli Districts in north-eastern Tanzania. Founded in 1997 by Maanda Ngoitiko, over PWC’s 20 year history of engagement with these communities enormous positive change has been achieved in the areas of land rights and property ownership, economic and entrepreneurial development, and dramatically increased girls’ education rates.
Women of Impact: Stories of Resilience and Change in Pastoralist Communities
www.linkedin.com/company/pastoralwomenscouncil
Lara Berry
Director of Membership for Connective Impact. Connective Impact has been the go-to resource provider for international nonprofits, businesses, and funders seeking inroads to new and diverse partners and collaborators. Building a comprehensive membership network, we use the power of intelligence to build connection and impact.
Other Show Notes:
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Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to the Powerful Ladies Series
01:39 Meet Lara Berry: Champion of Global Nonprofits
02:55 Naw K'nyaw Paw: Leading the Karen Women's Organization
05:23 Rajaa Ali: Advocating for Democracy in Syria
07:24 Consolata Nobert: Transforming Orphan Care in Kenya
11:11 Maanda: Empowering Indigenous Women in Tanzania
20:46 Impact of US Aid Cuts on Global Initiatives
45:13 Empowering Women in Patriarchal Societies
46:26 Challenges and Achievements in Women's Rights
47:19 Advice for Women in the US
47:36 Funding and Support for Women's Organizations
58:25 The Importance of Long-Term Partnerships
01:05:41 Staying Motivated and Inspired
01:16:30 Final Reflections and Call to Action
This is a powerful Ladies powerful conversation series episode. Each powerful conversation series we bring in a panel of women who are experts, have firsthand experience, or both on a particular topic. For today's episode, we have gathered an incredible panel of women who are truly doing life changing on the ground work in countries, including Burma, Kenya, Tanzania, Syria, and in the us.
I find that when the world seems overwhelming and moving in the wrong direction, I need to surround myself with women who are doing the work to make the world a better place. These women absolutely are. And often with limited or disappearing resources, minimal support, and while being under the potential risk of bombings, women have always done the hard work.
They have always pushed forward despite it all, and we still are. I found this conversation to be so inspiring, so moving and filled my heart up with awe, gratitude, and a renewed belief in humanity and our futures. I can't wait to hear what you get at this episode. Enjoy.
Welcome to The Powerful Ladies podcast. We have an incredible panel today, and I'm gonna dive right in, having them introduce themselves, say where they are in the world, and talk about the incredible organization that they're supporting. We're gonna begin with Lara Berry because she has been integral to making all of this happen. Lara, tell us about yourself.
Thank you so much. Yes. My name is Lara Berry. I am director of membership at Connective Impact is a global, nonprofit organizations, social enterprises, social impact, change makers, really doing incredible work throughout the globe to help in different sectors such as gender equity, health environmental issues, women's rights, human rights.
And what we do is we support our members in trying to find them the connections and the resources they need to do their most important work. So I Lead the Network and I am excited to have four of our incredible members here joining in on the podcast to discuss the work that they're doing in their communities, with their communities and just their journeys of being incredible women leaders.
So I've had the privilege to get to know some of them personally, but I'm happy they're here to share their stories and also talk about the work that they're doing. And where are you based? And I am based in Southern California. Yes.
Okay, great. Thank you. Moving on to our next panelist. Naw K'nyaw Paw . Yes. Thank you.
Thank you. It's my pleasure to be here. Yes. Lemme introduce myself. I'm Naw K'nyaw Paw, it's meaning Korean Flower, the flower for my people. And I led an organization of 75,000 women from Ingenious Group in Burma called the Karen's Women Organization. And our community has been suggest to the first colonization by the British, and then oppression by the Burmese Majority.
And we have been ruled under the Burmese military rule for the past 70 years. For me, our organization, we work in the refugee camps inside Thailand, where some of hundred thousand members of our community live. And also inside our traditional land in Eastern Burma which is currently being bombed attacked by the Burmese.
We work to serve our communities. Amidst of this war. We provide education, emergency food, shelter, safe houses for women who have been abusers and all. And also a wide variety of services. We are entirely led and staff by community women. We have trained women to be teachers. To and also because we don't have a school or advanced school in our areas and we have trained ourself to work with children with disabilities to provide special education for children with disabilities because there was none here.
And we help build a network of women who survive violence by the Burmese military or by their partners so they can support and protect each other. Many of us are stateless like myself. My family fled Burma because of Bur Burma army attack when I was 11 years old. And one day I came home from school, found my family gone.
So I was searching for my family for two days later I found them. So my story is just like many of the hundreds of thousands of people in my community, we work to ensure that our communities and culture survive. And that's women are provided become the leaders and have the democratic rights that they deserve.
So you're just doing a few things. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Thank you so much. Rajaa..
Thank you so much, Kara, for this invitation and for this great broadcast. I am Raja Ali. I'm co-founder for Center for Civil Society and Democracy. It's a Syrian founded and Syrian focused organization where we were inspired by the Syrian Revolution in 2011 to bring more, the value of democracy to Syria, and this is where we focused on empowering Syrian youth, Syrian women and Syrian civil society for establishing a democratic culture if you want, like in Syria where we had suffered so far more than 50 years of dictatorship and also oppression. So we were inspired by thousands of Syrian.
Bold woman and man who took the street to say, we want freedom. We want dignity. We want to live together, all as like the diversity that we have in Syria to be protected and also to feel like safe and valued as citizens in the country. So this is where CCSD has been an important actor in the Syrian context in the last 15 years, where we really focus on bringing beast, sustainable beast, sustainable development, and also.
Bathing the road for a Democratic state in Syria, and I'm very happy to be here. We have a great program called Woman for the Future of Syria, where we focus and we worked with hundreds and thousands actually, of Syrian womens. And I'm also inspired to be with many powerful ladies from around the world. So thank you Kara.
Thank you. Consolata.
Hi everyone. I am Consulata Nobert from Kenya. I am the founder and director of the Mango Tree Orphan Support Trust Kenya, which is a community based orphan care program. Many years ago, I, when, with, when aids was a big issue in, in, in Africa, in Kenya and neighboring countries and children were on the streets and everyone was struggling to support children.
I began to look at researching the best model for orhan care in Africa, given the magnitude, the numbers that were needing support, even the scar resources that were available around, but also considering the, a, the culture of the African people. I had worked for institutions that were run by other people, and I wasn't satisfied because there was everyday people who came to beg for spaces for children to be admitted.
And once the institution was full, it was full until children turned 18 so that they moved, which means. They could not. So I was sure that the institutional model could not solve the Africa's orphans problem. So my research led me into visiting many projects and also countries.
I went to Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, and I came up with a model, which is a community based orphan care. Looking at the child in a very integrated approach, we're looking at the child within a family, within a community, and insisting that each child remains within their own community within the extended family.
And if there is no one in the extended family look for a foster care that could help, but within the immediate community of a child. After my research, I was lucky to get some support to come back to the village where I had grown up and I'd seen the d testing effect effects of HIV and aids.
And so we've been supporting close to 32,000 children Wow. In the community, directly supporting the education of over 8,000 children, orphans. That's what I've been doing. And today we are looking at how do we replicate, how do we, can people learn from our model? Because Kenya, for example, they saying they want to change the way they care for children.
And everybody's saying from institutional care to community-based care. And we have 18, 19 years of doing that very successfully. Of course, the challenges are there, but that is the organization that I run. So we look at community based, we look at education for the child, we look at livelihoods.
How does the person who keeps the child against to improve their food security and income generation, what about the environment? A child who is hungry, communities that are hungry, destroy the environment for survival. So how do we intervene so that they love and protect the environment? Children with needs like needing corrective surgeries.
We ensure that the children are supported to to get corrective surgery so that they can begin to live a normal life. Teen mothers, girls who've been sexually abused and have had babies at 13, 14, 15, how do we take them back into school and give them a direction so that they become better mothers for their children in the future?
So those, and it is done within the community, everyone supporting the other so that we all grow together as a community. So that is what the Mango Tree Orphan Support Trust is about. And we also have a branch in Malawi. Thank you.
Amazing. Thank you. And then Maanda.
My name is Maanda. I'm sorry I have distracted you a bit. From Tanzania and I work with an organization called Pastoral Women's Council. Pastoral Women's Council has been existing for the last 27 years. We have about 16,000 women, indigenous women members in Northern Tanzania. We actually work with women because we felt that when a woman is born, you are an indigenous woman, you are actually facing double discrimination or double marginalization.
When I grew up, personally, I grew up in a very difficult environment whereby girls have no choice. The society, your parents determined your life from the day you were born in. And all the way throughout, a woman is treated as a never growing child. So PWC is founded. I am actually a director and a co-founder is founded by 10 women, and most of them were struggling.
To find, to feed their children. And most of our founders, they actually faced domestic violence. So they're critically, they feel like PWC is their own home. So PWC is having since we started, we have been really working hard to ensure that we promote women voice and women agencies. Our focus is actually on education.
Our priority is education of girls. And we do education in so many levels. We rescue skill girls from forced marriages. We have rescue skill center. We also work with teachers. What we. Parents parents and Teachers Association to ensure that the parents value the girls' education. And this has been really important because it's actually adopted by our government in some regions.
We are also doing, we are also running a secondary school for girls whereby we call it a safe heaven because you still found a girl who is facing parental abuse as a result of Dory because Dory is paid when you are still, when you are still very young. And engagement is actually considered as creating relationships between families and families.
So changing social deep structures is actually not easy. We are also working with what we call women's and rights leadership forums. So our work is totally the right of a girl. The right of a woman is underpinning the PWC work, the Women and right leadership forums. These are the groups which include 25, 25 people, 20 women, and five men who are exclusively existingly, educate the community and in France that women are equal partners in the society.
So the women, right In Leadership Forum is actually where we talk about the position of women in leadership is where we talk about domestic violence cases, is where we talk about why are we not voting for ourself as women, we can as well be decision makers. We can be in the village government, we can be in our schools, we can be teachers, we can be doctors, and we can be valued and come back to work with the community with skills and knowledge and be respected.
So when we started the Women Right In Leadership Forum. 15 years ago, we mentored 60 women to become village leaders. Village chairs or village leaders in Tanzania are the people who make decisions on behalf of the entire village. A village could be inhabited by 7,000 people or based on the size of the particular village, up to 13,000 people.
And the village chair is having is actually managing the natural resource in the village. Land distribution education. They work very closely with what is with the league, with the legally bind village government, which is really all these people are elected. And in Tanzania, you women must be seven in the village government as village government members.
And they're really mandated to make key decisions, including. How many children should be funded with village resources? How much land should be distributed and the ownership and the management, even the grazing patterns. So the village government is really important. So when we started, we mentored 60 women to be village village chairs.
Actually, we only three won and it was even so difficult, but a good number, not too good number, but at least few won as in, in the village government. Normally the law says it, they must be seven. And then the second five years, we mentored 70 women and actually we got 13 warning dispositions. And these five years election is going on in Tanzania and we mentored 100 women and only 18 won.
So to us, even getting 18 village chairs.
And long PWC work has been extremely a big success because you have to go through a very difficult process of mobilizing the community to give you vote, to trust you. It include verbal abuse, it includes even your family telling you cannot stand. So it is really like a very tedious process.
And for the first time we even see women stand starting contesting to become to become member of parliament. And to us as PWC with this is as a success, but also the women, right? We are also doing the other important department is really climate change. Climate change is real and climate change is manifesting Mae women and indigenous women in so many different ways because now we are still talking about a woman walking about five miles to only get 15 liters of water.
We are still talking about a community whereby a lot of children will not even go to school. There is no infrastructure despite the fact that millennial development goals, sustainable development goals, we have been talking about those goals for the last two centuries or decade or two decades.
This money is not reaching to indigenous community. And this is why I am saying indigenous community, we found ourself marginalized it twice. So what we do as PWC for climate change, we have actually started mobilizing community to develop their own climate action plants whereby we talk about water.
We are living in a dry and semi-arid lands whereby the livestock, the drought is now more consistent. The livestock are not getting water and livestock to indigenous women in Northern Tanzania is school fees is held. Is economic, is food, is livelihood. So we are really addressing these through through mobilizing community to come up with their action plans.
And these plans are advocated in the district council to ensure that the district council, which is like a government entity, adopt and integrate into their own plants. So they take it to the government and we ensure that we keep monitoring to ensure that a significant amount of money is allocated based on community priorities.
These are really also difficult because we have to talk about youth rural migration to town, women. What are the women accessing? This is one of the big component. And we have just now started what we call grass seed banks, whereby the women in the village get 100 acres. They want them collectively.
They work on it and they plant the. And distribute the seeds. And keep the seeds for their own livestock. So during the dry season, they can also feed the other big program, which is PWC Running, is what we call village Small Banks. We cover, this has been extremely, a very successful economic empowerment for PWC because we also really believe economic empowerment for women is essential not only because of money, but it bring women collectively in solidarity to sit together, discuss practical issue and strategy issues that are affecting them.
So currently, PWC is having 970 women. Women groups whereby they're running a microcredit, they're also really doing the coba, like sharing, collecting the money together, collecting the small capital, borrowing among each other. And this is, this model is extremely proving to be powerful.
We have, even because of the success of this model, the women have themselves started an independent microcredit out of PWC because we want PWC to remain as a women advocate. We are also through the Women Right and Leadership Forum. We have trained over 200 paralegals. Because it's very difficult to access justice in the rural areas.
So the paralegals, we work with the Law School of Tanzania and Legal and Human Rights Center to ensure that they train the paralegals and they get certificate. So they take these women to ensure that when the case are failed, are failing to be responded or resolved in the dis in the village level.
They can actually go to the police, they can go to the magistrate and our paralegal ensure that these women are getting the right. So this is in a nutshell, this is really the work of Pastoral Women's Council and I'm really happy to respond to any questions and I'm very glad to be part of this important group.
Thank you. Thank you. And so part of why we wanted to have this conversation with all of you today is because here in the US I aid has been getting pulled and defunded. And we know that this causes a ripple effect in ways that the government making those choices has no idea what's actually happening.
So how have you been impacted by that change and by any other loss of funding because of what's going on in the world? And Raja, maybe we'll start with you.
Thank you so much. I just wanna highlight that, thank you, Amanda, for highlighting how difficult it is to have women in decision making.
And actually CCSD has been doing a lot of work to get like more women in decision making in Syria as well. And because it's actually that mean like responding more closely to the local community needs. And this is bringing me also to your question, Kara, that really the cut. Of aid from the US government has impacted Syria, not only not CCSD, we have actually contributed to some survey how this is impacting Syria in general.
As like in December, 2024, the Syrian regime, the asset regime has fallen and the new era has started for Syria. And this is we were looking for this era to really advance more on our program, but also the thing that, like we believe it's necessary for Syria, such as relief and recovery.
Such as rights and democracy and also peace and justice. And this is where we were depending heavily on how the US government will be supporting those kind of programmings. And we were like doing we were getting support to support our women program to advance more women on their local community for like more community participation and also engaging in decision making.
We were getting support for having more youth engaged actually to advance peace and democracy in Syria. And this is all actually erupted. We shouldn't be forgetting about the earthquake that happened in Syria and Turkey in February, 2023. And also the devastation from like more than 14 years of intensive oppression and destruction caused mainly by the acid regime and other actors in Syria.
So relief and recovery program is really in need for support. So maybe I can, like currently we are supporting 50 local based organization inside Syria, mainly in the north where they are. Really supporting like schools to have like minimum conditions actually for children to be like attending schools, et cetera.
The IDB camp, which has like many of the people who have been displaced even three times or four times since three 13, 14 years, and we are. Supporting like safe spaces for women, safe spaces for children, minimum humanitarian aid for the IDP in the country. Other agriculture project and man talked a little bit about that climate change and also in general, like how the environment is affected affecting the lives of many people.
For example, one of our local organization partner in des, or they are. Supporting now like a new village in getting a clean water. Can you imagine it like in 2025, we still need to support people to get clean and the drinkable water and this is where we are. And those are I just want to give you like couple of like examples to see like what kind of effects the losing of those funding could be affecting if it's in peace, justice, or rights and democracy or relief and recovery for Syrian people.
And I really hear from all of you sharing that where the organization started from. Foster children, orphan children, women's indigenous rights, you quickly realize, and I think this is part of the female condition of how we see it's all interconnected and layered so quickly that it is expanded to taking care of, it's almost everything that is needed for survival.
Food, shelter, water rights, legal aid. Like you can't start helping these communities and be like, we're just gonna help just them and just give them money or just give you have to start building the whole ecosystem and it's so impressive how many components you've all listed, like you probably could have listed for an hour yourselves.
All the things that your organizations are doing and supporting and when. Humanitarian progress and aid and, being in the social enterprise space is discussed. It's only I feel when people, like all of you who are on the ground doing it, or if we're seeing, scientists tend to do it as well, start talking about all the layers of the ecosystems that need to exist to come back to your core mission because we, you were thinking about the whole person and then the whole community and it just keeps having a ripple effect from there.
It's another reason why it's so important to be empowering organizations like all of you have because you are going wide and deep in what the support needs to look like. Za for you, like how is the USAID or other funding shift impacting your ability to have access to the resources you need?
Yeah, if we start from u with USAID number one. When you run a program like ours, you keep looking for calls for proposals and you apply. So I remember applying for a a donate what a fund from the US government, usaid that put us in five years preparing ourselves. 'cause they say they were moving from supporting through big organizations to locally led organizations.
So we worked for five years to create this organization that was bringing together all, more than 1,500 organizations within our county. I was chair, a chair of that means sacrificing a lot of my time and money. And they didn't give us money for all that preparation, but they said, once you are ready, we will fund you so that you will now fund the little organizations that are members so that we are not using big organizations sadly.
So we put in so much in there, sadly, the year that they were saying, yes, now we are going to find you. And they said, we are going to start with 15 million. That is the, then after a month it all collapsed. So I don't even know where the millions that had already been allocated to us when it's just died like that.
So that is one end. The big organization, a local development organiz, if you read, they were creating local development organizations in counties in Kenya and they had piloted, they had started 11 counties and ours was one of it. I even moderated their launch for the 11 counties. They're saying, we are seeing great potential.
You now we are not even hiring PE experts, other people to come and launch or talk. You understood. And so now the support is going to come. It never came. Then on the on the local front. We have been working as local implementing partners. When you have big organizations, they recruit local implementing partners.
And we are a local implementing partner for a program that is called vocation 95, which is specifically looking at children who are HIV positive and their families. So we had even built a school. We had built a school because we wanted, we had seen that we would lose some of our children who are HIV positive when they went to bigger schools and they stigma and they wouldn't be, we wouldn't adhere to their drugs.
So we theater this school where it's a happy school, a very warm school. The children walk by themselves, take their drugs and they're fine. But for these children, we are expecting therefore that this program, USAID is going to, they had promise they're going to find these children so that their education will continue.
The first year, they gave 20% of the fees. So we had expected that it would rise. Instead it all died. So we have chil we had, then we ended up with children who are in school, but we are not having any money coming to support their education. So again, if I had to look for food, now I went begging for organizations who could give us food in order to keep these children in food, which has been quite hard.
So on those two levels, I, we, as the Mango Tree have had a real, really hard hit by the US decision.
And the final one is the organization that, that has been partners for the last 19 years. Three years ago they said, we will be closing down. They're u UK based. We'll be closing down and so begin to look for support elsewhere.
Actually, that is, this is the what made me even meet Lara. I went to opportunity collaboration, connective Impact, and just looking at other ways of looking, getting support in preparation for the exit. So they exited the beginning of this year in March this year. And left a little fund that is supposed to contribute to about 70% of the school fees or a group of 600 children, but without admin costs.
So first of all, the fees is not complete. Second, it, they, we have to find a way of delivering it. And they say, it is your children. We'll give you what we have. The rest is you take care of your own children. So it's been a tough environment to be in. But then they said we were merging.
So merging with different organizations, even when you merge the organization that still exists, definitely will bring forth their own interest ahead of yours and you basically chasing them. Then the final one, we were hoping as that we would work with a big organization that works for children in India called Foundation.
And they and when we were looking at the care reforms and working with the national, the Go government of Kenya, then the next thing they also have they have not been able to get raise enough funds. It's a US based organization, and they've had to retrench more than 50% of their top, top management team.
And then now they're saying, we can also support you direct. We do not fund anything. We'll only support you with technology now if you give me technology. How does technology feed a hungry child or transit? So they have all those things all coming together, and the question is, how do we exist within this space that is becoming quite difficult. Yeah.
I'm, thank you for that and I, I'm really hearing how, we have examples in the US of, both what happened in Puerto Rico and Katrina and other natural disasters where people wanna help. So they send what they think people need, and then they're like, we don't need any more of, we don't need coats in Puerto Rico.
We just need the cash for our local people to do what we know needs to happen. And it's so hard to explain to people who wanna participate that, and I think people get so nervous about donating money to organizations that they don't have a long-term relationship with because there's so much suspicion around what, where's it going?
And is it okay? And is it getting into the hands of the wrong people or the good people? And. You guys can tell me if I'm wrong, but everything I've read and seen and who I've spoken to, they just say, give us the cash. We know what to do with it. Just do that because anything else that's not money is going to minimize our ability to move at the speed that we want to in the areas that we need to.
I'm seeing lots of head nodding. For those of you who aren't watching. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Okay. For for no gal pal, when I'm thinking about Burma, I'm really curious about. The challenges that you have locally as well as internationally getting the support you need and getting the word out.
So where are your challenges coming from? Is it funding, is it local appreciation supports? Like where are you having to fight and battle to run your program? I think,
In the case of Burma right now to have the like international solidarity it's it's ever needed because the military has be b attracting their own people by using air strikes or draw tag as well as water sharing links.
Which killed more than 130,000 people already. And, there has been more than 3000, air strikes. And even today there, there was like 30 air strikes in different part of Burma. And that is already killing a lot of people. And this era at tech is killing targeting the civilians and as well as the public infrastructure, like the schools, hospitals, churches.
So it's really difficult for the people. But we really it's, it is very challenging to continue to get attention because the military crew has been going on for four years and with a lot of things that going on around the world, conflicts going war we we are like, it's very challenging to have international communities to put bra into the agenda, of the world. And that is a challenge. At the same time it's also challenging for the refugees who has been on the Thai border, particularly in Thailand for more than 40 years. And it's getting worse because the, with the 40 cut from the usaid the refugees also suffer severe food cut.
In the last three months, refugee received less than like about $2 per month per person. And then in June July the food card that they received top up to $5 and they were forced to leave. On this amount of money for one month. And this event was already cutting out a flooding.
It's running out in 36 days, like the end of July, after July. There is no certainty about whether refugees, we will continue to receive the food card or not. And this is really creating a hardship for the refugees. And in the Thailand, since Thailand has not ratified the refugees convention, they only accepted refugees as humanitarian ground and they didn't allow them to go outside and work.
So that means people can't even work. To support back their family. And this is very challenging. And and as well as the usaid supported also healthcare in many of the refugee camps. And that's also in the next 30. 36 days, no one knows what will happen and if no donors or if no USA cannot continue supporting, which is unlikely that they will support, we know about the current administration policy.
It's really created like a, it's really a blow for the whole current society anyway. We continue to support each other. We continue to raise fun and to tell people, but it's becoming very challenging in our situation. So yeah, in the case of Vermont, to get international attention, to get international actions collective, actions to put pressure to the regime and not to sell the weapons, especially jet fuel, because.
What they when they get Burma cannot, produce their own fuel. They only receive it from other countries and when they get the only targeting civilians. So it's very challenging for us to continue to have the international community unified voice and collective action against regime, particularly the countries and country like Russia.
And like China and India continue to sell weapons and China even interfere into their like conflicts. And by providing support to the military and by pressuring the ethnic resistance group to really force them to give up to make peace with the regime where the regime continues to bomb and take ethnic.
So these are all challenges for us at the moment.
It's making my brain melt, thinking about how much you are all doing, and then thinking about doing all of that under attack and under mortar shelling, and then thinking about the level at which. You have to keep self-motivating
Yeah.
On a daily basis to, there's plenty of reasons why you could be like, this is too much.
Like what it, we're going backwards. And it feels that way so often in the middle of it, but the perseverance and the determination and the grit to keep fighting for it and not just keep fighting for what you're up to, but adding other components to also hold space for while also looking people in the eye and saying yes, I know you only have $2 and here's Yeah. We can't give you more, but here's something we can do. It's the emotional stretching and bandwidth that you all must have is it's extraordinary to, to hear what you're dealing with and that you're being successful in the areas you are, despite all the reasons that.
Are against you. Yes. In, in the US as well, there's a lot of conversation about needing female leadership. And Amanda, you mentioned how important that is for your organization. How are you seeing change happen at the village level by having these more women in charge?
I can really give an example of a recent woman who was her husband died and all her cows were taken by the relatives. The plot of land was taken away. The everything, the house, everything. And even the three children that this woman had, they were almost forced due to, separated by the mother. And this lady went to the village. To the village government whereby a woman is a village leader. She went straight.
And hold the women Right and Leadership Forum. And the case was not able to be resolved. She holded this lady hands and they went to the court. And we have been in the court for the last three years and we were very lucky to do appeal to We app appealed because the lady failed to, in the primary court, we appealed to the court of in Nausia to the high court in Nausia.
And this woman won and got everything. And I think it was simply because a woman who was a village leader with a lot of majority of women in the village in the village government, they really understand this issue and they really hold her hand. And this is one of the very important women leadership, but also, we have so many cases. When we started PWC, you hardly see a woman with a name in her tit it of a shamba or a plot of land. When we started, it was so difficult. We had to do meetings and meetings. And we also living in a polygamy society whereby a man can decide anything. So it was only men who had plot and shabas.
Shabas means like a place where you can cultivate and get sub subsistence farming. But now as we talk today, the moment we started working, mobilizing women to be part of the leadership structures in the community. It has completely changed. It has changed the attitudes, it has changed the practice.
It has changed the actions. For example, only last year, for the last two years, over 1,700 women. Head, their title is their plots written in their names. And this is only the women with titles. We are not even, we are not even talking about the women who are just like having a letter from the village government who are loaded the plots.
So these women leadership has significantly changed the landscape and it has created a respect of women across the country. Not only like the Northern Tanzania where we work. There are so many places now that women women are like breadwinners when they do like businesses. They feed their families, they go into position and they're standing to talk with male in meetings.
Because also traditionally Mae women, for example, they were not allowed to stand in men's meeting. You cannot even stand and talk about anything because. They don't really value your contribution. But today as we talk here, we are very proud to see women in northern Tanzania are land, right? Pioneer. They stand and they lead and they decide.
And more importantly, they're really attending community meetings. Still a long way to go. Particularly on getting higher positions like being member of parliaments, being insensitive being insensitive. Councils meetings or councilors basically. Councilors still very difficult. It is not easy, it's not something easy, but at least I see like we have planted a tree.
And third three, what really make us happy, we see more young women coming as champions of land, as champions of education, as champions of women's rights and land rights. And to us, this is really important.
Are you also seeing the attitudes of men starting to change in response?
We see, I see a significant men attitude change, especially young men. Actually we are now using a curriculum. We have a very well thought of curriculum. We call it securing community future, whereby we have been training 100 men and 100 women really on property ownership and how do we promote happiness and rights in the community within our society. And what is really, we really question on what, what bring happiness and what bring conflict.
For example, when you see, we have been really using like a cow, because a cow is something we, with a lot of potentials, a cow is our food. A cow is everything in Masland. But we have for example, a role play whereby you have a picture of a cow and you say, who is raising this cow? This cow is raised by women.
When this cow grown up, who is selling it is a man who is getting the money, is a man who decide which cow to sell is a man. What is the ownership of who? A woman in this cow, a woman will drink milk, a woman will take a skin when the cow dies, if this really bring happiness or it bring destruction within the family or family conflict.
So this is really where we start. And now we have seen women wanting property like cows, women warning land. And men are not threatened. Some men are still threatened, but but we have seen a significant growth in change of attitudes and change of practice, particularly in a such deep patriarchy society.
The work is still, we are only in three district. We still need to go to four districts that are untouched. And this is really, I feel one of the key approach of women of pwc now we are starting working with small women led organizations with the potential to scale up as a way to scale up our impact.
So yeah, it gives me so much confidence and peace of mind knowing that incredible women like you are out there doing this work because, and I'm glad that you're seeing each other as well because it's, we need to remember we're not the only ones doing the things. And it's amazing to me how much you guys are accomplishing with the challenges and the lack of resources and everything that isn't available.
You're changing communities from the ground up and to me that's what a beautiful way to use this life that we have. The next question I kind of wanna move on to is. The, us right now is in a crisis mode of some extent, right? The degree of which we, we could all judge, is how much of a crisis is it and is it a crisis of privilege or is it a crisis in reality?
And, I'm curious for all of you have experienced things that most people in the US can't even imagine. They can't imagine having to support so many children who are going through the HIV aids experience. They have no idea what it means to have lack of rights and just be fighting to own a cow.
They have no idea what it's like to be living a life and trying to function as normal while being bombed and during a revolution and all of these things. And yet you guys are again, doing this incredible work. What advice do you have particularly to the women of the us? What would you give them for the state, the country's in right now.
What advice do you have?
Yes. Is it me or Yes. You go ahead. Jump in. Yeah. I really think we have for the last, since actually this new leadership, the entire Africa, or especially Tanzania and us, we have significantly experienced a lot of uncertainty, especially in funding. We had a partner who was funded by USAID and we were getting money.
We were getting money indirectly from UU, from usaid, but we had to cut significantly to reduce our activities. We have to scale down health outreach that we are doing, especially for women like health clinics. We have to stop the plan to expand to women led micro credits or cooperative because it is really difficult to get co-funding.
And I really think that we Thank you. We still working with international partners, international donors. We are doing so much like fundraising. We are also mobilizing the community and a alert them about what is happening and it might actually get more worse. But what I would really tell the women in the US or in the funding, I think it is really important that we get women organizations in Africa.
We get unrestricted long-term co-funding that support organizations infrastructure lead and without, with less bureaucracy. Climate change financing is also really important. We need contributions for indigenous people because they have really sacrificed for many years for many years they have lost their land for the name of conservation, for their have and currently we are facing carbon and we feel like carbon is another threat to indigenous women, particularly because their life is very much dependent on natural resources.
We also need women organizations in the US or in the global health in the global north to actually continue pushing for structural policy change. Especially donors, agencies, they should directing more resources like the World Bank should really direct resources to organizations because they're living with the community and they're directly working with women, but also other private philanthropies.
We really requested them that to easy application. So women organizations can apply and also technical support because I see us here, we are not good. I am not even personally, I'm not even good in technology. How many women who are good in technology of my age, me, I'm, me I'm almost is.
We also need volunteers. We also need technical support people who can fundraise for us. For example, US, it is PWC. We have a nonprofit organization in the US which has been existing now for. One year. We are going to almost two years, but we have never really been able to fundraise for it. We want to use our fundraising effort and more importantly, the last point, we need to continue with meetings like this, having solidarity because we are all connected.
Yeah, we have issues that are affecting us here and maybe they're not affecting you there. So we can always really strengthen our collaboration and share our stories and share and share our work with a wide, a wide audience and document. For example, PWC, we have just written a book and we want to continue telling our stories because we are far away and we know that sometime we, people don't really know what is happening here, but there's also a lot of success stories of how women struggle. For example, us, when we started pwc, you hardly see any girl going to school. But today there are thousand or thousand of girls who want to go to school, is a big change to us.
But this change is not like building a classroom. Changing, yeah. Change. Natural change is not easy. Thank you. Yeah.
I just wanted to say that I really like how you put more like emphasis on structural change and structural support, flexible support. I think this is very good. And regarding, and I like the question, Kara, about like how you how can women around the globe really supporting each other?
I do really believe in localization. Believe that each context is different. Yes. But we learn a lot from each other. Like we learn, like for us as Syrian, we have a lot, like with N-C-C-S-D, we have in we have a series, it's called Voice for Change, where we are hosting like change makers around the world to tell us.
In their opinion, like when the transition happened, for example, how this has impacted their life, how this has impacted their, like what's their advice? If they go back, what they would change? This is so Syrian women can learn, and this is where I would actually share with women in the us. Like the most important thing I, and in my opinion that the vision should be there.
Like where are we going? What is our vision? Where, what do we want our society to be? Because sometimes, like me and other people are different in our tactics, in our activities, but as long as our vision is the same, I really feel like we can do. A lot together, even though we are doing it differently or like we are using different tactics.
So the vision and the strategy, if we are able to get more and more women in the US to agree on, I think this is will be a big change because I do believe. Women around the world needs to have to achieve change because still, even though in the global south is much, much harder than when we are talking about the global north.
But this is where like we, and this is where men that talked a lot about like how women in the global North could support the woman in the global south, but also how can we share, it's important for us to share the experience. So the first thing, as I say, shared vision, shared value. Really important. The second one, you talked about inspiration, and I think it's very vol important that we are, continue to be hopeful and like really inspira like we are inspiring like we are looking for.
For something and this is will keep you going and this is important that you are working towards something, towards the change, the value that, because I, when I was hearing our friend here from Myanmar and she was like talking about like how helping people who like, especially the refugee for 13, 14 years.
This is, I think the inspiration is by seeing the people are very strong moving forward, et cetera. And this is where like also women in the US I feel like they are very strong like learning from each other also, like really supporting each other. This is very important. This is would be my second, like advice. And the third one would be resourcing is very important. And if you are looking to do change in like your life, your community, your country, it's very essential to think about the resourcing, where is the resources from? And it's a big topic now everyone is talking about resource mobilization and how, especially after not only the US government, actually many government around the world has cut their funding.
So it's also, and this is, I'm looking to you, Kara, and Lara, to be thinking about like how to do like more resource mobilization for the women in the US but also for women around the world as well. So thanks for the question. Yeah.
Thank you. I think that there are so many opportunities, and this is why I'm so passionate about people having a passport and traveling and going and seeing what things are really like in other countries with their own eyes, because it's so easy to get swept up into layers of privilege and not paying attention to what's happening in the world.
And I don't know anyone personally that when they're not, whether it's going to, work with foster kids in the US or going to other countries where there are, significant crises happening, like no one isn't moved by that. And there's such a disconnection sometimes, which is why I'm so glad that we're talking today because we there, people need to realize how much we need each other and how things could go and that we have the ability to, your point to.
We have solutions to fix all of these problems. And women in particular do too. Yes. Consta.
I had a meeting in the us in the, in on Saturday and for a team that we've been trying to, I've been trying to get close to create a partnership with so that we would form a charity register Mango Tree in the us.
And when they were listening to what we've been doing and they're saying, but oh goodness, I wish you'd also come and solve our problems here. And then they were sharing what is their foster, how does the foster system care system work in the US and how desperate children are and how, unsuccessful, you have children being fostered.
Even in a year, a child may have passed through, I don't know, 7, 6, 7 families and they're being passed on from one hand to another. And yes. We're looking, they're asking, is the objective for this our work only to raise money here to go to Kenya? Or is there a way that Kenya would also, we would also learn from the mango tree and what it has done in, in, in Kenya.
And yes, we agreed that there's a lot that can be shared across. Now, answering directly to the questions that you, the question you ask, I would say we need to realize, people should know that we don't only need money, we need more than money. When you're talking about, when you're talking to our friends in the us, we need trust.
I think I would say this aspect of lack of trust, where money would only be given to big organizations that would then take groups like, us as local implementing partners and take us in circles and you do proposals and proposals and your time seminar. I think there's one there, there's one good thing to what has happened that people are beginning to realize that it is important to look at local leadership.
And then philanthropy must shift from short term projects. You say three, three years. Now, if you want to transform lives of people, if you really want the project to make sense and touch, go to the grassroots and transform the lives of poor people. Three years, two years, I don't know. It does not.
It starts, you begin before you, before the actual work begins. The project is over, the money is all finished at the office level or whatever, so we need to look at philanthropy that shifts from short term projects to long term partnership. Funders should invest in local leadership, allow and allow flexible funding.
Once you, a lot of the time, the donors design already what they want, how they want the money, how what, how much money you would be given and how much, how long should you, you spend it. And if you don't spend it within that time, it is the threat is it is being taken back. So you find that we miss to recognize community wisdom and expertise within our communities.
When you come to the aspect of government, I will, I would say governments and mult, multilaterals must center grassroots voices in policy conversations and extractive practices. Now, global allies should amplify African LED initiatives and resist, the parachute aspect. It is then we but how can you amplify, how can you amplify the African LED initiatives?
So that they, because they're more lasting, they're more rooted in the community and if supported, they will they will bring long lasting, impact that you can come and see. So what we need now is a solidarity that is rooted in equity, mutual respect, and the courage to fund justice, not just programs to fund justice.
And we too on this side, I want to look at ourselves as well. We don't just look at the other side as where the money would come from, but what partnerships can we build that is mutually beneficial because there is no one on this earth that has everything. They don't need others.
I've just given the example of that discussion that we had, and it's true. When I went to Miracle Foundation last year in, in Austin, and they took me to visit some of the organizations that they support that are doing foster care, listening to me. Those people can, no, you must come again. You need to share.
And I was beginning to give suggestions like, why don't you have support groups amongst people who are fostering children? Because everybody is wanting to have a remote control. It doesn't work. Children have to be brought up with relationship. So there is a lot that we could land across board.
So relationships needs to be looked at more mutually rather than the giver, the donor and the receiver. And the receiver is having hands open like I am. My hands are open now waiting. See? And the other side is saying, so it is supposed to be a partnership, a relationship that is mutual, that, that would benefit both worlds because u even the us my struggle is last week, getting back home. I started my journey on Sunday, ended up here on, on this morning. Yeah. And I saw frustration of people at the airports. And you'll sit down and say, huh, you mean in this great country, this great nation? People are also frustrated like this at airports. And with all.
Look at the news and the tornadoes and we are all struggling. There are challenges everywhere. And we try to begin to build a world and work on decolonization. Yeah. Localization. Look at those words that really bring mutual understanding.
I'm so glad you brought that up, because there is such a component of the lack of trust due to the perspective of colonization that's still rooted in so many places.
Like it makes me crazy when people are thinking that. Anyone just doesn't matter where you are. They think this sometimes, like even about other Northern hemisphere countries. But the idea that we're not equally capable, equally trustworthy, equally smart, like it drives me insane. So I can only imagine on the, outside of the US how you guys are like we are not setting a good example in most cases.
And the audacity and the ego that comes with, we know the best way. We know the only way. Like it's such baloney. And I'm so glad you brought those points up because trust is missing in so many parts of our national system right now and absolutely our global system. And we all know that if we all were at a dinner table right now, that would evaporate so quickly and this idea that.
Everyone is struggling at some capacity. It's very much like how therapists talk about trauma. There's big T trauma and little T trauma, and everyone on a human level is struggling. Big S struggle or little s struggle based on your perspective. But when you're in it, it's always a big struggle. And having that perspective of being able to support each other and be of service and get out of our own space about our problems because, and the truth is, most of our problems are so small on an individual level because we're caring about our community, right?
Like I'm, I would imagine all of you would say the problems you have are so small compared to the people you're helping. And we can keep replicating this at all different levels. Yeah a band of women changing the world is what makes me excited because again, we're like, let's just fix it Like this is, we know it's silly, we know it's unnecessary.
We know we're all, we all have solutions. We just need to keep moving it forward. I have one more question for everyone, and then we're gonna go into some rapid fire things to wrap it up. But my final big question is. How do you stay motivated, inspired, committed to what you're doing?
And I'm curious about, both mindset perspectives, but also what are habits that you do every day to make sure that you are at the level you need to be to help everyone else. And we'll start with a no gal pa, if that's okay with you.
Yes. Actually I agree with what people say mostly how the US women should support or should do, right?
Support the community led and really that building trust and then support is what is the ethnicities that already there. And for me, I think another important things that we need to keep in mind is to encourage the self-care and collective care. It's very important because we need in our work and then the experience that we had because of the conflict, because of the killing and fighting we need time to rest to reflect and and to heal.
That unless we take care of ourselves, we cannot help other very well. So it's very important that we encourage each other, and that is also it's like answering one of your questions of how we continue now, despite all these difficulties like myself everything I try it's very hard.
Because you all, you constantly in fears. Even right now, like when I'm sitting in I can be bombed at any time. And if we keep only thinking about that, the emotion, strength, and the mental health that problems that we have we really have having negatively impact our work. So we really need to take time like to really have some time to connect with the families, to talk to the families, and then to go out enjoy ourself in nature to get healed, and as well as for ourself to give time to do activities daily so that we are healthy and we can continue.
And of course, I think for us need to be, to have a hope no, to have a hope to hold onto the hope because what we. Hope is what belief we believe that the truth and justice will prevail. And we believe deeply that our struggle for democracy, for human rights is a righteous, and also our fight for gender equality is important for the community development.
Even all these difficult situation that's give us hope and another hope is that, we have to remind ourselves that we are not superwoman, that we can solve all the problems. So every little things that we make changes are happening. It's also inspire us or give us hope. If the girls, if a girl is able to finish the high school a of, like all the conflicts that give us hope. And also when the young women learn about their rights, right? And they're able to speak out and also speak out for the communities that is also give us hope to continue and when womens are like making decision over their bodies and when women are coming together as a collective like leadership and speak out for the community fighting for just give us hope.
So I think we need to look into the positive things, otherwise, or a lot of negative things that surrounding us or when, and we can lose hopes easily. We also need to have a courage, but with caution, trust our own instincts. Unless we have courage. Like in the situation of Burma, we can't even step into the conflict areas and we cannot reach the people that needs our help the most.
So yes have courage, but also trust your own instinct and be careful. Be like have also have the passions in your heart that you wanted to support, but also thinking of your safety, your wellbeing, so that or as long, if only if you are physically, mentally, healthy, you'll be able to support the people that you are working neutral their next generations and continue to fight for justice, social justice in your community.
Thank you. Raja. How do you stay inspired and motivated?
Yeah I use double strategy, like I, and I just want to recognize that everyone is different, so it's very important that you, everyone should choose their own way of being inspired, connected, et cetera. For me, if I am involved in a problem and it's very, or like an issue that I want to solve.
Personal connection is very important to me. So I always take that step and extra effort in order to be connected to the people that they are, like in that community. Like for example, when maybe I will talk about, like one example of the work that we did in the last 10 years or so. And so we led one campaign to for ceasefire on Ani for example, or in lib in in Syria.
And I, at that time, I really needed to talk with the woman specifically because the woman has laid the campaign for ceasefire. And talking with them, like really energize together and think, brainstorm together on what we can do. It really was inspirational for all of us, like the courage, the determination, the persistence that the woman has.
To stay in their community, even though the bombing is still there, strategize together to get to the security council, to the un, et cetera. So all of this was very important. So personal connection is important. And talking with the people who are affected, and strategize together, talking together, et cetera.
This is one strategy for me that is always important. The second one, it's coming from my math background that I think about it logically. What is the problem that we are solving and how can we divide it into separate or like smaller problem? Because sometimes when you talk about if we want to solve that.
Like poverty in Syria for example. Now it's too big then like how can we divide it? How can we think about it? And together? I like always to have the teamwork. Is there collective thinking? Is there, but also I like to think critically. Is it this is the only solution, or we have a different solution?
Do we have like more. Like better, more optimal solution that we can think of. So this is why I'm identifying the problem, dividing the problem to smaller problem in order to be able to calculate while we finding solution thinking creatively and critically on the different solution that we are bringing.
And later it's basically, it's not only one person solution. It needs to be like all of us working together. I, and of course like here I'm talking about like bigger problem, like community problems, but even on the personal level sometimes, like consulting with your friends, with your family. It's always important and it has been very helpful for me, even like with my colleagues.
So this is what I wanted to share with you.
Thank you. Lara, this question's for you as well. You work with so many organizations and see so much and you have the unique perspective of being in Southern California and interacting with these different organizations. How does it impact your ability to stay motivated and what are you doing to make sure that you can support them the best way possible?
That's a great question, Kara. Thank you. Yeah, I think what keeps me motivated is the fact that I'm working with such incredible change makers who are on the ground doing the work. I recognize that I'm in a position where, although I try to understand the daily challenges and the issues that they face and the necessity to have support on so many different levels I recognize that I'm not the one that has to wake up every day and do that work, and it motivates me to then turn around and be supportive where I can with these women and these organizations. And, I do have a background of working in global development. I lived in Haiti for 10 years. Haiti was a very challenging country to, to work in as well. So I do have a perspective of these challenges, but I also understand that I have the privilege to walk away from it at any time that I can.
These women choose to be there in the trenches every single day fighting and doing the work. And so that level of respect that I have for that is what keeps me motivated to want to work as hard as I can and doing my best to try to find, the support that these incredible women need for their organizations.
And how does that also change how you're viewing what's happening in the US versus what you know has happened and is happening elsewhere at the same time?
I think that there's a lot that we can learn from from these individuals who have been fighting for gender equality, who have been fighting for, community and, underserved youth.
I think that these organizations, whether or not they're in the us or they're across the globe. They have specific strategies that have been working for their community. And I think that there's a lot that we can learn from that. What does it take to mobilize? What does it take to, show up and be present for your community and to stand up for some of these things that we need.
So even though I would say that our problems are vastly different, there is some commonality and alignment in terms of what we are all fighting for for ourselves, for our communities, and just for the world that we wanna see. And going back to what you had said earlier, we don't have all the answers for that.
We have all of these change makers right here who've been doing that across the globe, and I think that we can learn a lot from them as well.
Agree. For our final kind of question for everyone, I'm gonna have you do a two part. We ask everyone on The Powerful Ladies Podcast where they rank themselves on the Powerful Ladies scale.
If zero is everyday human and 10 is the most powerful lady you can imagine, I'd love to know what score you would give yourself on a one to 10 scale. And then when you share that please also share how people can find you, support you, donate, all the things to connect with you. So we'll start with Consta.
Think I would choose to give myself 10 because I am as powerful as I can be. And adding to, if I just add my voice to what everybody has said, for me, what keeps me going is that I say I am limited. I can only do what I can. I have faith that keeps me moving. And I said, whatever I can do, I'll do and I will. If there is a place, I'm told I can, you go there, you'll find help for the offer the child, I'll go and I'll risk it. So that is why I give myself a 10.
I'd also like to tell everyone who's listening and not watching that when you said you give yourself a 10, everyone on the screen smiled. And I think that speaks to the impact when we declare our space and declare our power that other people can't help but see it and reflect it back. And then where can people find support and contribute to your organization?
Our organization is first of all on our website, the Mango Tree Kenya dot org. We have a donate button, which takes you to our page for donations. We are registered as members of members of myriad USA who are our fiscal sponsors. We, any donations given to us through Myriad will reach us. And then stories about us. We will, I'll send our social media pages, where Can finders. We also have organizations like global Giving, which we are members. There is B one G one, again, where we are members, and we can be supported.
Thank you so much. Raja, what's your score and how can we find, support and connect with you?
I love the scale. Kara, this is a great idea. I, if it's something that I really affected by or wanted to do change, I definitely am 10. Like I I do whatever I can in order to solve a problem, and of course, there are problem that it cannot be solved.
Easily, and it needs many stakeholders to be involved and I've been working very hard in order to bring like different stakeholders. So definitely an issue that I care about. I am definitely 10 as powerful to affect and change the situation or the issue, but sometimes I like to be just like one, like in some issues.
I don't want to influence anything. Actually, it's the opposite. I would like to give the space for other women and men and like the people who are affected. Closely and they wanted to do the change. So I easily, and I like it actually, I feel like even more powerful when I give the space for other people to do the changes and to be as powerful as they can as well.
And this is important like for everyone. And you can as I said in the beginning, I'm co-founder for Center for Civil Society and Democracy Syrian founded and Syrian focused organization. If you want to support civil society, woman youth in Syria, please reach out to us. Our website is www dot ccsd NGO and we are registered in the US Europe, in Turkey, and we are supporting, as I said, this year, 50 Syrian civil society organization, hundreds of women and youth. Please reach out and I'm more than happy to be talking with you more. Thank you, our website as well.
Naw what do you score for yourself and how can we reach out and support you?
We think my house, I give myself 10 because I have power, I'm a powerful person within my, my, my house. But I think if I think about in my communities with the things that are happening and I feel like I still cannot. So many changes or transfer so many things. I would say maybe eight. But I think if I team up with other women that has 10 or eight, then we'll be very powerful together. And I said eight because I led the organization that has 70,000 heterogeneous women who are leading themselves and try to refine, trying to solve the problems, build up their own capacities and never give up despite, being bomb every days.
And, the flooding needs cut to them. But we never give up. We continue. And for me. I always speak the truth to power. I never backed down, and I will always speak out for the underprivileged and marginalized people, and I will always show my solidarity to the people that are are, suffering like me or experience like me. And that is the commitment that I have and the values that I hold to my heart. To always stand up for other peoples and, to be the voice other people to, if people can have a voice and to amplify their voice that is very important in my work and for my organization.
You can reach me my organization at Karen's women org and then for the Facebook Karens women's organization.
Thank you so much. Maanda, what is your score and what is the website that we can reach you at?
RU has given our website, but I'm really, I have ranked myself 10 because I feel like I have been so motivated and working for years, and I just feel like I do what I can to achieve changes. And when I evaluate what I have been doing for the last 30 years with women's rights ranging from education to land rights and everything, I just feel like I'm 10 and I have been really doing and sometime facing very high level risks. And when I see these women coming together, doing issues, doing structural changes to themself and to their community, I just, and I'm always with them. I just feel like, yeah.
I love it. Lara, what about you? How would you rank yourself and where can everyone find and support your organization?
I would rank myself about a five working every day to keep that power alive and staying motivated. But I'm happy to be a support, be a, not necessarily an in your face leader, but to support those leaders. So that's why I rank myself a five because again, i'm behind the scenes supporting. But if you are interested in learning more about connective Impact, you can visit our website. We do also support and host a series of multiple incredible nonprofit organizations. A lot of locally based non-profit grassroots organizations as well.
So you can check that out on our website www.connectiveimpact.com. Also happy to share additional information about the organizations that we're here today, although I know that they can do that themselves. But if there, if you do wanna get in contact, we can also support that connections building as well.
So yeah that's where we are at. But I would love to turn the question around Kara, and ask you as well, how would you rank yourself?
I always joke that there are days that I am mad at myself for naming this company Powerful Ladies, because I think like every woman, there are days when I would like to just hide in bed and watch movies and pretend I don't have responsibilities, but that doesn't last very long. So I think that I, usually hang out between a seven, eight and I'm leaving room for being more powerful. Like in this conversation today, I am so inspired by all of you and realizing that there's always more we can do. There's always more courage to be participating in. There's always more to be setting aside. Selfish things for acts of service and like the change that we can really make. This podcast is one of the most selfish things I do because I love talking to women like you guys. I love hearing your stories and sharing it with other people. So I know I'm leaving this conversation ready to tackle all things.
And part of the coaching I do with people is we talk about automating, delegating and deleting. And I think when we have perspective like we have gotten through this conversation, it becomes very easy to delete a lot of the nonsense that we all focus on. Like we're all humans. We all have egos, we all have those personal things that creep up on us and are the small game things, so not the big games that we are up to.
And I'm just, I'm so thankful for all of you for being a Yes. Thank you, Lara, for helping us get this organized and put together. All of the work you do is so important, and I see you and I honor that. And I feel like I'm holding hands with you guys to keep moving forward, and I am excited to see how we can support each other going forward as well too.
Yes. Consta,
I think listening to you, Lara, and now, hey, even her name is powerful. I can't, I'm not, I'm trying to, I'm trying to pronounce her name. I think I am. I beg to disagree from this perspective. What do we understand? What meaning are we giving to the word power? If the, for example, Lara brought us all here, and if she's supporting powerful women in, if you ask about powerful women, she's able to pick up some and brain.
Where is she living? Her own power. Okay. If you are able to host such a dis, a word, whatever, a sport that brings all these women together and it is your creation, you are moving with it and you're able to amplify that. Why would you talk about you saying you are leaving more room for you to be powerful.
What is it that you're going to do that will give you more power? I think the power is the strength with within us that makes us make certain choices, that makes, that moves us to a certain direction. That inspires you to bring to the, to come up with such a, i a miss initiative that, that makes a pick up.
Accept the role that she's taking at her organization that. That supports now, oh my goodness, I wish IKWO to stay where she's, it's my first time to meet a woman talking about working where she's with that confidence. I have never been in a situation of war, honestly, and some of what she's talking about I've just been reading and thinking that confidence, I would not be talking about an anything less than a 10 if we understand power from the strength of winner that pushes us.
Yes. There's also the aspect of humility, the humility in us that are accept that we need the support, we need to work with other people and alone we are not sufficient. That does not therefore bring us our scores down. So that is just what I wanted to say. Allow, I'll say it and I rest my case. Thank you.
I love it. I love it. And I think this, it's, this is the most interesting question that I think it's asked in every episode because it's so interesting to see how women rank themselves so differently in different parts of the US, in different parts of the world and why and what it means. And I, and so I love that you are demanding that we declare ourselves the 10.
I love that you were saying we have all the power we need. And I think reflecting back on what you're saying to myself, my self-evaluation is not what's inside of me, but what I feel. Just like that I'm using I, I still have more use to go. Very similar to like, how much courage do you have?
I'm like, I know I have all the courage I need. Am I using it all? And I think that's the call to action, right? So the call to action for everyone that's listening is, if we all have a 10 out of 10, how can you use a little bit more to make a difference? How can you step into that bigger space and yeah.
This conversation for me has been so inspiring in that way. So thank you guys so much for your time, the work you're doing. You are all so smart, so inspiring, and I really hope that I get to meet you in person someday. You're inspiring me to make to, put together a little world tour so we can come and see you and be on the ground.
And of course, if you come to California, please let me know. There's a dinner on me. But again, thank you all so much for today. You are very busy and this time I know is so precious. So thank you so much. You're incredible.
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share it with a friend. Head to the powerful ladies.com where you can find all the links to connect with all of the women on our panel and their organizations. Come hang out with powerful ladies on Instagram at Powerful Ladies, and you can find me and all my socials@karaduffy.com.
This episode was produced by Amanda Kass, and our audio engineer is Jordan Duffy. I'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Until then, I hope you're taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
Related Episodes
Episode 320: What Civic Power Really Means | A Powerful Conversation with Cara Stewart
Episode 313: Building What’s Next When Things Fall Apart: A Powerful Conversation Series on Resiliency
Episode 260: How to Trust Yourself and Take Powerful Action | Live IWD Panel at Soho Works LA
To Donate, Support, or Connect with these Amazing Guests, Visit:
Naw K'nyaw Paw - Karen Women's Organization
Rajaa Altalli - Center for Civil Society and Democracy
Consolata Achieng Norbert - The Mango Tree Orphan Support Trust Kenya
Maanda Ngoitiko - Pastoral Women's Council
Lara Berry - Connective Impact
Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
Graphic design by Anna Olinova
Music by Joakim Karud
