Hello Everyone,
Today is International Women's Day, a day to celebrate and acknowledge the achievements and strength of women around the world. Through K.I.D.S., we meet many inspiring women, who rise up every day to face incredible hardship and adversity and through sheer resilience and determination strive for a better future for their children and themselves.
On a road trip, in a full Cambodian van, we found ourselves sitting next to a mother and her child. We could tell the mother had never sat close to a foreigner before as she stared at us for quite a while. With our basic Cambodian language skills, we exchanged stories of our respective lives for a couple of hours and tried to coax a smile out of her little daughter, with little luck. It turned out that the mother was a widow at 32 and had three other children, none of whom she could afford to send to school. She was returning home from selling the bananas that she grows to scratch out a living for her family. As the van was stopping to let her off, we pressed a bill into her hand and asked her to use it to help her children. She smiled and nodded, but when she snuck a peek at the $100 bill we had given her, her smile faded to a stunned and teary-eyed expression of gratitude and disbelief. Knowing what we know about rural Cambodian life, we can say that she probably would never have earned a hundred dollars working as hard as she could in a month. As we rolled away from her stop, on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, she repeatedly mouthed thank you through the window. This woman had traveled many miles to sell her bananas to feed her children.
In Nepal, K.I.D.S. supports women through a great program, WELNepal. For two years now, K.I.D.S. has assisted poor and illiterate women by providing a sewing program and a mushroom cultivation program. The women are also learning to read, thanks to WELNepal and K.I.D.S. Not only do these women learn to sew, but they have also started small businesses, making school uniforms and clothing for local people. Others are selling the mushrooms that they grow, supporting each other and working together to change their futures and to provide for their families.
We also assist many women who work in brick factories for slave labour wages. They work long, tiring hours making, hauling, and stacking bricks to help feed their families.
As we visit these women, they share their hopes that their children can have a better and easier life than one they have had to live. We help these women by educating their children and improving their living conditions. Their gratitude and their GRIT is admirable and humbling.
These are only a few of the stories we hear and witness. We honour these women for their determination, their strength, and their hard work. They are true warriors against poverty, discrimination, and injustice, and their continual perseverance serves as an inspiration for all of us. Their determination is improving the lives of their kids and thanks to K.I.D.S. we are supporting them with their goal of a better life for their families and themselves. They never give up!
Until Next Time,
Adrianne and Rick
