Though you won’t see any Women’s Day cards on the supermarket shelves in the States, International Women’s Day is apparently a pretty big deal elsewhere on the planet.
In Italy and Brazil, men give the women they love (be they mother, lover, or daughter) flowers and/or chocolate.
In India, an organization called Growing Opportunity gives loans to female entrepreneurs. Lots of them. To date, over 60,000 women (mostly from very low caste backgrounds) have been enabled by small loans to start their own businesses, often in partnership with other women in “self-help groups.”
I got some first-hand experience with GO last Friday at the International Women’s Day celebration in Chennai, where over 40,000 GO clients attended the event over two days.
I’m a sucker for international microfinance, but I’d never had the privilege of seeing its fruits ntil this weekend. What I found was not what I expected. Usually very conservative and demure Indian women were having an incredibly good time, joking around and laughing with the opposite gender (read: me) and almost begging us to take pictures.
Consider celebrating International Women’s Day today. Call your mom, give your girlfriend some daisies, or make a loan to someone who could really use it. You might just make her day.
I remember seeing a great documentary several years ago on international microfinance!!!
How it blew my mind!
What an amazing idea and OH how it changes so many lives for the better!
Even though I am privileged to be an American woman, getting ahead financially is hard at times, and so I myself am always trying to think of some entrepreneurial way to better my life, and my heart goes out to those women so much!
People can try and be a part of this huge endeavor by joining up with this group:
http://www.kiva.org/