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Written by David Hartingh, IESC President & CEO
IESC’s Home Office team inspires inclusionThis week IESC is celebrating International Women’s Day, a global event that raises awareness of women’s issues, celebrates their contributions, and inspires collective action in creating a more inclusive world for women. It’s also an important opportunity to…
read moreAfter graduating from Sokoine University with her agribusiness degree, Fatuma Issa Mbaga was determined to put her new education to good use to open an agribusiness. When she first started her business less than a year ago with 70,000 Tanzanian Shillings, she sold one product—tea masala. Recognizing that she needed to diversify her small business, Fatuma sought outside resources to help her expand.
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International Women’s Day 2019: “Better the balance, better the world”
By David Hartingh, President and CEO
IESC’s Home Office team bettering the balance.Today, March 8, we celebrate…
read moreBy Carybeth Reddy and Aichata Mohamed Sako
Diallo Sako runs a successful soap import company in Bamako, Mali.In Mali’s capital of Bamako, Diallo Hawa Traore runs a soap company, one of the first in the city to sell gabakourouni, a special soap from Ivory Coast. She started the company more than a dozen years ago. Diallo’s wholesale and retail customers know…
read moreThe theme for International Women’s Day 2018 is “Time is Now: Rural and urban activists transforming women’s lives”
By Tom Miller, President and CEO
This Thursday, March 8, we celebrate International Women’s Day. This year, it comes in the midst of what feels like a cultural tipping point. After a series of high-profile cases, the #MeToo movement has drawn attention to the heartbreaking prevalence of sexual harassment…
read moreby Riamny Méndez
Narcisa Bautista recalls that in 1981, when she began working as a secretary at a produce export business in La Vega, Dominican Republic, there were no women in charge of such export companies.
Eighteen years later, when Narcisa became owner of the same company at which she began as a secretary, there were still no women in charge of similar companies. Narcisa grew her career and developed leadership skills in a…
read moreWorkforce Development for Women in Nigeria Requires a Cultural Shift
By Udunopa Abalu
One day while visiting my native country Nigeria over the holidays, I was out with some friends in Abuja, and I saw a large billboard advertising Maggi seasoning. The Nigerian-made bouillon cubes are often crumbled and sprinkled into dishes to make them more flavorful.
This billboard showed the image of a proud and smiling Nigerian woman on one side, and…
By Julissa Almanzar
The smell of chocolate in the air is heady, even a bit distracting, as I sit down to talk with about 10 women who run Chocolala and Chocal, two factories in the northern Altamira region of Dominican Republic. They came together to tell the history of their businesses and how hard they have worked to build them, persevering despite significant personal and societal obstacles, and how their economic empowerment is in turn…
read moreHaoua Cheick Seip, IESC volunteer expert, on assignment in Ampara, Sri Lanka, in 2011.
When Women Help Women, Entrepreneurs Thrive
By Marissa Germain
Women in West African cultures’some of which are historically matrilineal’hold positions of respect and strength. As the providers of shelter, food, wisdom, and comfort, they have often been called to firmly hold their communities together in the face of conflict and…
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Sanogo Diarra owns a company that employs 22 women from her neighborhood.
Sanogo Diarra’s fruit processing company has created good jobs for women in her community
It was 2009, and Sanogo Diarra saw that women in her neighborhood needed jobs. More than that, they wanted jobs. And she wanted to help them. In Mali’s capital city of Bamako, she founded a company that processes dried fruits and vegetables.
With her…
read moreRACHA Executive Director Chan Theary Talks Women’s Empowerment
In Cambodia, IESC implements a program that is strengthening local NGOs. The CBCLO Program is led by a small team in Phnom Penh who are bolstered by expert consultants and volunteers who offer training on critical topics such as accounting and financial management, policy and planning, human resource management, and more.
Susan Gurley is an IESC volunteer expert with a wealth…
read moreThe Far-Reaching Benefits of Women’s Economic Empowerment
By Aissata Traore
Nour Haddad’s* family struggled to make ends meet. With the average teacher’s salary in Lebanon around $900 a month, supporting a family of ten on her husband’s income alone was a challenge. Nour wanted to open a flower business to help support her family. But with limited resources, little family support, and a culture that reinforces women’s role as…
read moreJackie Howard (left) and Caroline Flowers (right) pose with their BBA diplomas.
In 2012, Caroline Flowers and Jackie Howard spotted a flyer at their university’a flyer that would shape the next three years of their college experience and beyond. It was a flyer was soliciting interns for IESC’s USAID-funded Investing for Business Expansion Program (IBEX), which provides business loan facilitation and technical assistance…
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