Women for Women International (WfWI),  is an international nonprofit organization, has supported over 462,000 women, distributed over $120 million in funds, and engaged 402,000 sponsors since its founding in 1993. The organization was founded by Iraqi-American humanitarian and entrepreneur Zainab Salbi in response to the horrific atrocities committed against women in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war.

A $25,000 grant will be used to scale up its work and presence in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), directly reaching 300 marginalized women with its 12-month social and economic empowerment program. The funds will establish and sustain its program in KRI through covering staff, training, communication, transportation, office and other program operation expenses. WfWI is requesting a general support grant for its work in KRI. These grant funds will be spent to support the establishment of WfWI’s KRI program office during the first half of 2018. This grant will support WfWI’s work in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. WfWI is currently serving women in communities in the governorates of Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, and Dohuk. The project will make a sustainable difference in women’s lives through accomplishing the following: 1. Establish a local office and training center in Erbil to provide services to marginalized women. 2. Deliver WfWI’s 12-month training to 300 marginalized women. The economic empowerment component of the 12-month program will train women in the following areas: (i) numeracy skills for counting, adding/subtracting, and using money; (ii) benefits of savings, basic household budgets, and opportunities for income generation; (iii) business basics, credit, entrepreneurship, planning, selling, and bookkeeping; (iv) working in a group or cooperative, members’ rights and roles, collective decision-making; and (v) formal and informal savings and access to financial services. WfWI will also provide women with six months of vocational skills training. Guided by WfWI staff, women will choose the skill they want to develop into an income-generation activity in a process that will analyse their capacities and assets and be based on local market assessments. Local specialist trainers will be identified to provide practical hands-on training and guidance in these activities. Under the social empowerment component, women will be trained on: health and wellness; family and community decision making; social networks and safety nets; rights; and personal safety. This training will also include gender-based violence awareness and prevention. Similar to a small cash transfer, each woman will also receive a training stipend of $10 a month that she may use to meet family needs or begin saving towards her future.

WfWI’s program activities directly align with the Foundation’s goal, ‘to make sustainable improvements in women’s and children’s rights, education, and welfare’. This grant would support poverty reduction and improved gender equality for some of the marginalized women in the KRI. This grant supports women having full agency to determine the course of their lives, and have improved welfare that allows them to reach their full potential. WfWI program graduates have improved confidence, sustained income, increased assets, better physical health and psychological well-being, greater leadership, stronger support networks, and their children benefit from better health and educational investments. Sustainable change in women’s voice and agency. WfWI’s works with women to nurture their leadership skills and their ability to articulate their own needs, rather than being represented by others, and advocate for their rights in their families and communities. These are skills that can be used again in the future after graduation from WfWI’s program; women are supported to form savings groups and/or cooperatives which often continue after women complete the 12-month empowerment program.

Through a multi-year grant $20,000/year  from the  Foundation, the Sunflower will be able to support a full cycle of Sunflower Fellows.

The Sunflower Fellows is a unique, four-year leadership development program for primary school and secondary girls studying in the informal schools within the Kibera Slums of Nairobi, Kenya. The organization identifies low-performing young women with low literacy levels, at risk of ending their education early due to academic challenges, and provide them with holistic support daily after school, on the weekends and during the holidays, involving teachers, parents and caregivers to ensure our fellows are developing their academic skills, leadership abilities, and most importantly, self-confidence. After successful completion of the four year fellowship, Sunflower fellows are matched with sponsors and placed in secondary schools, or internships throughout Nairobi, putting them on the path to tertiary education.

The primary and secondary fellows program is a four-year commitment to excellence. During their time at Sunflower, Fellows challenge their minds, bodies and hearts to become the Leaders that their families and communities need. Our LEAD Principles, Love, Education, Action and Discipline, help fellows to personal growth, while our foundation in education and academic success equips our fellows with the literacy and math skills they need to be successful in and out of the classroom. The emphasis on character development, personal accountability, community service and leadership give our Fellows the training they need to be socially conscious leaders today and tomorrow. Daily, Sunflower Fellows come to the Sunflower literacy lab after school, where they participate in academic support sessions, technology labs, literacy support, art, and LEADership sessions. On Saturdays, fellows participate in community service, meetings with their mentors, and extended literacy programs, parent workshops and field trips. Every fellow undergoes counselling sessions at least once a month, writes in a journal, and participates in personal reflection, empathy and meditation sessions; the Sunflower is dedicated to the personal health and well-being of our fellows as a complement to their academic development.

While there a myriad of non-governmental organizations working in Kibera, Kenya, there are no programs that focus on low performing students, specifically young, vulnerable girls, instead, the majority of funding is directed towards programs for students with high grades and test scores. This has created an imbalance, there are opportunities for students that are high-performers, while students with lower academic achievement are left out, and essentially left in, extreme poverty. Girls and young women in Kibera, especially those with low academic performance, face a myriad of additional challenges. 43% of girls and young women in the informal settlement reported that they have traded sex, or sexual acts, for food , while only 1/3 of Kibera’s females ever complete secondary education . Within Kibera, girls are more likely to not attend school, as families are more willing to pay for a boy instead of a girl; for young women and girls that are enrolled in school, they are more likely to have frequent issues with attendance and interrupted learning, as they are called to take care of the home and younger siblings.

Sunflower will not just support individual girls, but  families, and the entire Kibera community. Through the education of girls and young women, entire communities flourish. As the Fellows are the most vulnerable, at-risk young women in Kibera, the holistic support they receive is transformative.

Humanity Crew is a grassroots non-governmental non-religious-non-profit organization founded in November 2015 by Adv. Maria Jammal and Dr. Essam Daod, a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, who joined a rescue mission to respond to the influx of Syrian refugees arriving in Lesvos, Greece. During the mission they identified the deep threat to the refugees’ wellbeing. In particular they became concerned with mental health of the refugees brought on by despair, loss, pain and fear from the unknown future and flight to safety. During the mission, they development Humanity Crew to deal with these issues. The Grant of $25,000 will support 2 refugee camps.

Humanity Crew has identified 3 specific problem areas that women living in refugee camps in Greece are currently facing. -(1)Violence and Protection – new living conditions that women face when moving to these camps exposes them to unsafe environments. Many of these women were used to strong support systems from family and friends. After joining the camp they quickly realized they did not have anyone to rely on. Additionally, they are at a greater chance of domestic violence from their husbands who once was the proud family patriarch, to someone who is helpless and without purpose. Using this situation to carry out domestic violence on their wives and children. (2)Mental Health – Many women in these camps have come from war zones in the Middle East, experiencing trauma, personal loss, abuse and sometimes severe torture. Arriving at the camps women further face security issues and often face symptoms of anxiety, depression, PTSD, insomnia and many other symptoms.(3)Cultural Gaps and Integration – Throughout their journey, many times the humanitarian aid these women receive is usually received without any cultural or lingual sensitivity by locals and other volunteers who speak different languages and lack cultural understandings. If approved, funding will be used to fund programs that will focus on 4 different areas:

– Creating empowerment groups of local women inside the camp

-Short term group therapy for women

-Sensitivity training for the refugees and for the care-service providers in the camp by their professionals

– Cultural and community activities for all refugee groups The direct beneficiaries of this project will Syrian, Iraqi and other Arabic speaking women and young girls living in refugee camps in Greece. Funds will be used throughout 2018.

Humanity Crew believes they are making a sustainable difference by empowering women and helping integrate themselves into their new communities. Their programs work to provide women with life skills that help them in taking steps towards their own education and career as an active part of the refugee society. Additionally, Humanity Crew looks to involve the whole community, in hopes of educating and then preventing violence against women. Their goal is to create a holistic community based change towards a healthy family life and healthy overall society

The Foundation is pleased to again support The Institute for Economic Empowerment of Women (IEEW), a non-profit whose focus is to empower women to grow their businesses, pursue greater entrepreneurial ventures, and become more active public policy advocates.

The global Peace Through Business program educates women entrepreneurs in Afghanistan and Rwanda on an annual basis. After eleven years of educating women entrepreneurs in Afghanistan and Rwanda, the Peace Through Business program is gearing up to add more diversity and to reach more women in a shorter amount of time. To move beyond the pilot phase with mini-courses requires a renewed funding effort.  . A matching donation for a 2 years,  $25,000/year grant is awarded to guarantee IEEW can expand the PTB/NU Pathways MiniCourses beyond borders. Experts agree for Afghanistan to become more successful, the rural women as well as the urban women must be reached.

The Foundation  wants to continue its partnership with IEEW in this critical phase of growth and success. IEEW recognizes that peace, economic growth, and good leadership must extend well beyond the borders of Afghanistan and Rwanda. Every donation helps IEEW to sustain and expand the program by ensuring financial viability that allows it to grow and evolve each year. Funds specifically will go toward a) educating women in the traditional PTB course AND in the new PTB/NU Pathways courses inside Afghanistan and Rwanda, b) bring the top students to the USA for Leadership Development in July, and c) create an Oklahoma City event to celebrate Women’s History Month and explore the potential for an Oklahoma Native American partnership educating women entrepreneurs.

Chicago Jesuit Academy serves young men whose families reside on the West Side of Chicago where opportunities are few.

A $20,000 grant from the  Foundation will help to expand the College-Persistence Programs as the number of alumni served grows from 185 in 2017-2018 to nearly 300 by 2020. Specifically, they would allow CJA to hire an additional College-Persistence Counselor in the 2018-2019 school year. This helps ensure that CJA will be able to deliver personalized high school placement, high school persistence, college placement, college persistence and career guidance to all alumni, even as the school doubles in size. Funds will be used during the 2018-2019 school year, specifically June 1, 2018 through May 31, 2019. The specific program goal is for 97% of CJA alumni to graduate from high school. Thereafter, the goal is for 50% of CJA alumni to graduate from a four-year college or university, 25% of CJA alumni to graduate from a two-year college or technical training program, and 80% of non-degree earning alumni, representing 25% of total alumni, to be meaningfully employed within three years of earning a high school diploma. The rationale for these goals is simple. CJA believes that all young people should have the opportunity to realize their potential, use their gifts in a meaningful way in service to others and have economic freedom. This focus on long-term outcomes is exactly why CJA established and continues to build the CollegePersistence Programs.

The Foundation is pleased to announce a $30,000 grant to FINCA for their BrightLife Program.  This is the fourth year of our funding and involvement with the program since inception in 2014.

FINCA International (FINCA) is harnessing its 30 years of experience in providing access to finance to lowincome entrepreneurs to bring sustainable and scalable solutions in the energy, education, water & sanitation, agriculture and healthcare sectors to families living at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP). BrightLife was founded in 2014 to address energy poverty. With Africans suffering from the world’s lowest electrification rates, people rely on indoor fires and kerosene lamps for cooking and lighting. The resulting air pollution leads to the premature death of up to 2 million people per year, and the widespread use of kerosene lamps has been linked directly to black carbon emissions which contribute directly to global warming. Through this new work, FINCA has a unique opportunity to accelerate the achievement of a broader range of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

FINCA has a unique opportunity to accelerate the achievement of a broader range of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), through its 30-years of microfinance work and its new work in social enterprises. Financial inclusion helps create the conditions that bring many of the SDGs within reach. A strategic priority of their work is to develop the pay-as-you-go financing for products sold through BrightLife as an on-ramp to financial inclusion to BoP clients to start savings accounts and have access to other financial products at FINCA Uganda and other financial institutions. Furthermore, durable, efficient and high quality clean energy alternatives—such as solar powered lanterns and clean cook stoves—provide improved health outcomes such as reduced incidence of respiratory disease and reduced black carbon emissions. Clean energy solutions also help reduce time poverty, providing children with increased study time, decreasing time spent on collecting firewood, and enabling businesses to stay open later in the evening.

Reaching women is a priority for FINCA’s mission and for BrightLife. Nearly half of FINCA’s clients are women, who often face the steepest climb out of poverty, particularly in Africa. Affordable access to high quality, affordable, life-transforming products like solar lamps, cooking stoves, and water filtration systems, available to BoP families has the power to substantially improve the health and well-being of women and children in Uganda, as they currently suffer the greatest exposure to pollution from traditional indoor fires and contaminates. A program that helps the Women of Uganda and the planet, is a win win for all.

ACE Africa has been awarded a $30.000 grant.
Ace Africa only works in communities where there is a real need, want and willingness to gain independent self-sufficient lives.
The programme is long-term and bespoke to each community, reflecting local cultural, economic, political and environmental
contexts focusing on all aspects of a child’s and community’s development.

In Homa Bay County, Kenya, 47% of the population live beneath the poverty line, and food insecurity is a
critical problem. Additionally, the county has an HIV prevalence rate of 25.75%, 4 times the national average
rate of 6%. In Kenya, girls and young women account for 46% of new HIV infections. Many of these girls and
young women are unable to assert their rights and face various different discriminations. These experiences
create an environment where there is higher risk of transactional, unprotected, and age-disparate sex,
contributing towards girl’s vulnerability to HIV.

In 2016 Ace Africa began implementing DREAMS (Determined, Resilient, AIDS-Free, Mentored and Safe)
projects that aim to address the structural drivers that directly and indirectly increase girls’ HIV risk. Drivers
such as poverty levels, gender inequality sexual violence, and lack of education. Monitoring, evaluation, and
feedback from adolescent and young women participating in the DREAMS projects have revealed that many
women have a desire to build their skill sets and improve their ability to generate income.

The DREAMS project benefits 140 out of school young girls and women aged 18-24. The girls and young
women have been identified as some of the most underprivileged, vulnerable, and most at risk of HIV
infection within their communities. In addition, 700 household members (each household consists of an
average of 6 members) of the 140 adolescent girls, will benefit from improved capacity to meet basic needs
and have a reduced risk of HIV infection.
Funds will be used for:
1. Nutritional based training and activities to ensure long-term food security and self sufficiency
2. Establishment and management of nutritional based enterprises to ensure long-term economic
security
3. Cost associated with monitoring and evaluating, whichhelp provide support on a long term basis
to ensure lasting economic sustainability and self-sufficiency

TechnoServe has been awarded a $25,000.00 grant. TechnoServe’s mission is to work with enterprising people
in the developing world to build competitive farms, businesses, and industries.
Their success is measured by increased financial benefits for the people whom
they engage. These benefits enable them to improve their resilience and reduce their poverty. TechnoServe
was founded in 1968.
In Kenya, “mom and pop” shops, also known as Dukas supply 80% of consumer goods, mostly to low-income
communities. Dukas provide vital services that larger retailers and wholesalers cannot, as the market is
fragmented with high transaction costs. Additionally, restocking generally requires the owner to travel to a
supplier, often a large retailer, with cash in hand in order to make purchases. This is expensive and time
consuming, and results in periods of closure, limited inventory, and ultimately relatively high prices for
purchasers and low incomes for store keepers.
In partnership with the Elea Foundation for Ethics in Globalization and Citi Foundation, the Smart Duka
Initiative is working to increase the profitability of 840 high-potential small retail shops in Nairobi, Kenya.
The Smart Duka Initiative achieves these results through in depth training and mentorship. Results include;
better financial and operations management, strengthened marketing, the adoption of digital solutions for
payments and inventory, as well as improving relationships with lenders, suppliers, and customers. The
majority of stores selected to participate are women-operated or women-owned.
Since launching the Smart Duka Initiatives in 2016, the project has reached 570 beneficiaries. These
beneficiaries include shop owners, shops managers, and employees. Of which, 52% are women. Shops are
averaging a 19% increase in revenue and a 22% increase in profits.
TechnoServe recognizes the importance of raising incomes levels for women in these communities. Due to
cultural norms and social roles that often keep women from owning businesses like Dukas, women often do
not have a chance to support their family. TechnoServe specifically targets the women population and
consciously works to provide trainings, meetings, and other opportunities compatible with the schedules of
these women.
To measure success, upon completion of a project, TechnoServe calculates a “return on TechnoServe
investment” (ROTI) score as a measure of the project’s success. ROTI is calculated by totaling the financial
benefits accrued during the life of the project, plus projected financial benefits over 3 years, and dividing it by
the cost of implementation.

RUP has been awarded a $20,000.00 grant. Founded in August of 2015, RUP’s overarching goal is to empower people from host
communities and refugees. RUP feels it is important that people who do not normally get to express their
views are given an arena to effect change. RUP focuses on working with low-income Jordanians, refugee
women, and children.
RUP seeks to address these issues through the creation of a Community Centre in the city of Zarqa.
Approximately 48,000 refugees are located in Zarqa, which is one of the most densely populated refugee
areas in Jordan.
The centre will look to give educational support, while teaching employable skills to the individuals who visit.
A particular emphasis will be around educational opportunities for women and children. The centre will be
open to all individuals and will look to create a space for these underserved communities to come together,
understand each other, and learn new skills. Additionally, the centre aims to facilitate a dialogue between the
groups to prevent radicalization and the use of negative coping mechanisms. For women in particular, the
centre will provide literacy classes and child-rearing classes, which will focus on nutrition and new-born
children.
The centre will be run by local staff and volunteers, primarily drawn from Zarqa. RUP is determined to help
Syrian and Jordanian refugees gain experience and learn new skills. The goal is to take these skills and use
them to help their families and other community members, which is turn will make a sustainable difference
for these community.

Through CAF America, a International and Domestic Donor Advised Funds Organization, the Foundation will contribute to the following groups:

$25,000 to Human Concern. Human Concern was established with the aim of supplying humanitarian aid to men, women & children affected by the current crisis in Syria. The charity is run by a team of professional individuals that dedicate their time voluntarily and who run development projects inside Syria focusing mainly on the supporting hospitals & medical activities, and sponsoring schools & educational efforts.

$25,000 to Mosaic Initiative. Since late 2011, the Mosaic Initiative has funded and facilitated various aid delivery projects that provide basic relief such as shelter, medicine, food, access to water, sanitation, clothing, education, and other humanitarian assistance, to people living in Syria and in refugee camps in neighboring countries.

$25,000 to Syria Relief. Syria Relief has a solid network of committed management and logistics staff on the ground inside Syria, striving to deliver humanitarian aid in hard-to-reach rural areas, as well as heavily populated and even some besieged areas. With help from the UK public Syria Relief has touched the lives of 1.8 million people.

$25,000 to Tauheedul. Since the start of the Syrian conflict, Tauheedul has established 10 schools inside Syria supporting over 2,500 children. School helps children deal with psychological trauma due to the exposure to unprecedented levels of violence, horrors of war and loss of loved ones. The schools also play an important role in securing the future of the children whilst creating employment opportunities for local teachers.