WHY CELEBRATE INTERNATIONAL WOMEN LEADERS?
Microsoft Insider News did a nice article on the Most Powerful Woman from every State (in the United States)
Covid, and World Conditions of 2022 have introduced challenging times as we approach the Month of Celebrating International Women Leaders. So important is positive leadership, I will be sharing throughout the month and highlighting people and organizations making a difference for women worldwide.
Harvard Business Review found a notable difference in what men and women need to recognize success from their networking activities. We can do so much more when we #choosetochallenge one another and be part of the bigger picture of a better more inclusive world, with opportunity for all.
In the midst of September 11, 2001, I became founder of the Executive Womens Network for empowering and connecting great women and celebrating success! Business Networking creates Jobs, Careers, and Business Opportunity and we have learned even more so since COVID the importance of staying connected, sharing opportunity and knowledge, partnering for success with one another.
Gender Equality and Women Empowerment World Talent Economy Forum
The World Talent Economy Forum (WTEF) hosted an incredible International Women’s Month Celebration, that was hosted by Dr Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana, Malysia President of World Talent Economy Forum. In March 2021 I was a proud participant of a fascinating panel of Women Leaders Discussion hosted by the World Talent Economy Forum discussion on Gender Equality and Women Empowerment.
As a mother and International Business Leader, I know first-hand the importance, and some of the unique challenges women in the marketplace face. More importantly however, the value, of Encouraging, Celebrating and Empowering Women worldwide, creates a positive economic balance, that lifts families everywhere. Developing programs for women creates opportunities and a way out of poverty in the most economically challenged areas, to raise strong educated children and empowered families.
Meeting Dr Yunus a champion for Empowering Women in Business Equity
Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance to encourage entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. His innovation for empowering Women Business Leaders created a microcredit model to create economic and social development that provided opportunities for women to lead from where they are. His work in empowering women and lifting nation’s poorest out of poverty resulted in numerous international honors including the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010.
Creating Meaningful Social Fiction: Viewing Challenge as Opportunity, A Social Project Example
Always I had a mind for humanitarian causes, diversity, and cultivating World and Local Talent. I called it Connected Caring, working on the principle, if we stay connected for our positive good, we share opportunities, ideas, and create solutions even better than we could alone.
Meeting Dr Muhammad Yunus, you KNOW you are in the presence of someone who truly thinks and mobilizes actions that create a better world. Poor are working, with insufficient income, poor regard, health, financial, and social limitations. Changing the lives of the poor can give them a fighting chance, but the step would require a revolution, and the right level of help to the poor. Let us create a planet of enough, of safety, of security and health. Let us create meaningful social fiction that opens us up to opportunity.
Surround yourself with networks of idea people, give wings to your vision. Dr Yunus envisions and reduces poverty in our world with creative solutions, envisioning a world with no poverty, no poorness, no unnecessary debts.
- Why must humans die of preventable diseases?
- Why must people suffer from a system perpetuated by poverty?
My Meeting with Dr. Yunus he shared that every “challenge” is also an “opportunity”, if you can discover the way to think differently about it. The greatest challenge in changing the mindset of people, is being somewhat only able to view a problem in the way our minds have directed us.
He illustrated one fascinating example of this in practice. In Bangladesh, the poorest women he was working with often reporting a serious problem was that children could not see after the sun went down. The disease was night blindness was a serious problem, in children. Consulting with doctors, he learned that the root cause in the impoverished communities is that children lacked vitamin A and the deficiency resulted in their inability to see after sunset.
UNICEF had offered to give vitamin A tablets for free but when one becomes dependent upon free medication or vitamins that might later be taken away, the solution would only temporary.
Dr Yunus, working on the principle that every problem has an economic opportunity for solution, implemented a most creative economically viable solution: They would start selling vegetable seeds to the borrowers of the Grameen Bank and encourage them to grow vegetables and eat and feed the children.
By selling seeds for a penny, they created an economic, social and healthcare change! Buyers of the seeds, planted the seeds, feeding their children, and selling the surplus. Everyone involved in the program loved it! What is more important.
The sale of vegetable seeds also brought economic success. But what is most important is that night blindness was eradicated in the whole of Bangladesh by understanding the cause way deeper than “my kids cannot see after dark” and creating a solution that uplifted the family’s health and economic conditions in a way that benefited everyone around them!
Grameen America: Empowering and Creating Women Business Owners
Grameen America uses Dr Yunus model to establish a program for Universal Access emphasizing the importance on building resilience funding that elevates from the bottom up.
In the United States, last year, Grameen Bank announced plans that would leverage Dr Yunus Model to offer $1.3B in Business Loans to low income, women entrepreneurs. Bank of the West shared insight and how this model helped empower business:
- Knowledge helps overcome structural inequities. Most entrepreneurs in this program possess a wealth of talent, knowledge and ambition, with a deficit of financial reserves or knowledge.
- Professional Networking offers like-minded community to inspire, encourage and continuously learn from one another.
- Access to Strategic Financing is essential for business foundations.
- Establishing a lending relationship is key to next level growth capital.
HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY:
- March 8, 1975: History.com shares the surprising history of International Women’s Day, beginning 1975, when the United Nations General Assembly began celebrating March 8 as International Women’s Day.
- March 8, 1978: Women’s History Month inception began as a week-long celebration in Santa Rosa, California. The Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women planned and executed a “Women’s History Week” celebration for the week of March 8, 1978 aligned with International Women’s Day.
- February 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued Presidential Proclamation declaring the Week of March 8th, 1980 as National Women’s History Week.
- By 2014, International Women’s Day was celebrated in more than 100 countries and was made an official holiday in more than 25 countries.
So we start on March 1. What are your thoughts? Let’s discuss.
Join us on Executive Womens Network to talk about what we can do to elevate Women to Pay Equity, Executive Leadership Equity, Business Innovator Excellence. Let us inspire, celebrate, and create opportunities of meaning for our family, community, country, and world!
- What can we do to celebrate and develop our International Women Leaders?
- Who are the most Influential role models and Women Leaders in Your Network?
- How can we improve our business and career networks to support and create a new age of Women Business Leaders?
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