Women in Leadership Initiative (WiLI) strongly believes that healthy, educated, and empowered women are better able to raise healthy, educated, and confident daughters and sons. By empowering women to overcome the effects of poverty, poor health, and violent situations, they can and will live full and productive lives – and so will their children, families, communities, countries, and ultimately, the world.
Women and children are among the most vulnerable populations in the world, suffering the most from illness, poverty, and disparity. Despite important roles within their communities, too many women and children lack access to basic services like quality health care, thereby compounding many other threats to their ongoing health and well-being.
The lack of access to health services, safer living conditions, and lack of opportunities for females can have devastating effects.
We have noticed that providing opportunities like a microloan in developing economies where women face higher barriers to entry in the formal labour market can have positive results! These women have to resort to entrepreneurship as a way out of unemployment and, often, out of poverty. For example, research on female entrepreneurship in Latin America and the Caribbean, found very high rates of female entrepreneurship in the poorest countries of the region—up to 35 per cent in Peru—and notes that only 13 per cent of women entrepreneurs in the region indicated that they expected their firm to grow over the following five years. In many cases opportunities and incentives are unfavourable for women to begin businesses, even when they have the abilities and knowledge.
We believe that providing hope through these small but impactful initiatives has the power to inspire women as they struggle to overcome obstacles and change the lives of their children for the better. Thank you for joining us on our journey to improving lives!