Empowering Women Globally: Highlights from the A2Empowerment 2022 International Women's Day Newsletter
- A2Empowerment
- Mar 8, 2022
- 3 min read
International Women’s Day is a global celebration of the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The #IWD2022 theme is #BreakTheBias to “Celebrate women’s achievement. Raise awareness against bias. Take action for equality.” By supporting A2Empowerment, you have helped to #BreakTheBias in so many ways!
Celebrate women’s achievements.
This year, A2Empowerment is celebrating several milestones stemming from women’s achievements. We’ve reached a milestone of awarding more than 2,000 scholarships to young women in Cameroon who have dropped out of school or are at high risk of dropping out! Over the years, our scholarships have helped girls as young as age 14 get out of arranged marriages and brought young mothers back to school after getting kicked out for becoming pregnant, which is the policy in Cameroon. Some scholarship recipients, like Marinite, are the first in their family to attend high school. She recently shared a note to thank you for helping her realize her dream.
The deep roots we formed throughout our tenure allow us to overcome operational challenges, caused in part to the pandemic, to support alumni in forming an entity to assume leadership in Cameroon. We are overjoyed to announce that our alumni leader, Grace, and the Cameroonian General Assembly are one signature away from gaining official approval for our sister organization, A2Empowerment Cameroon! Once the Cameroonian organization is operational, the US organization will thoughtfully and strategically shift responsibilities to the Cameroonian side, gradually taking on a supporting role.
Raise awareness against bias.
A2Empowerment has always raised awareness against bias towards women. Our program allows communities to observe a scholarship selection process that highlights the importance and potential of young women. On top of our current mission, there is another bias we’d like to target: the bias against nonprofit overhead expenses. A TED Talk by Dan Pallotta, a nonprofit executive, highlights the unhealthy organizational effects that can arise from A2Empowerment's previous model of having overhead expenses covered by the company's co-founders. We apologize for any contribution we made toward the negative view of nonprofit overhead, since it holds all nonprofits back.
It is necessary for A2Empowerment to change its operating model related to overhead expenses to support our exciting leadership transition that will provide salaries for women. Up until now, all overhead costs were covered by the company co-founders and grant money so that the full amount of all individual donations was put toward girls’ scholarships. That money remains in a separate account earmarked only for girls’ scholarships. Moving forward, a percentage of donations may be put toward operating expenses, such as mentor training, supplies, and stipends. Our new operating model opposes bias against nonprofit overhead and uplifts the Cameroonian women working with us by allowing them to thrive, to provide for themselves and their families while accomplishing the important work of supporting girls’ education.
A2Empowerment is deeply grateful to Boston University 180 Degrees Consulting President, Dhruv Patel, project manager, Rhea Bandaru, and her team, Miran Shah, Ayush Shah, and Roshni Tandon, for their input and guidance last semester related to this fundraising transition. This semester, we are continuing to work with a new project team, led by Ben Holahan, to understand donor considerations in supporting A2Empowerment so that we might increase our outreach. The group administered a donor survey, and they will make recommendations to help A2Empowerment improve based on the feedback.
Take action for equality.
A2Empowerment takes action for equality in every aspect of our organization. In Cameroon, our main program that provides high school and university scholarships aims to help women gain confidence, independence, and respect that will result in a more equitable future. Our transition to an alumni-led organization helps create jobs and opportunities for women in a male-dominated workforce. On the US side, A2Empowerment volunteers raise awareness and support for these efforts in Cameroon. Simultaneously, volunteers become more empowered themselves. Here are two recent examples:
Hannah Reifer-Mboussi, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who provided mentoring for A2Empowerment scholarship recipients during her service in Cameroon, recently authored an article through her employer, FreeConferenceCall, that was shared with millions in the FreeConferenceCall network.
Anne Cheung was invited to speak as part of a Women’s History Month series through the Danvers Human Rights and Inclusion Committee. To view the interview, visit the committee's YouTube channel.
We hope you feel proud to celebrate this #IWD2022 for the many ways you’ve contributed to #BreakTheBias by supporting A2Empowerment!