MEET MICHELLE
Sweet and cheerful, I can always count on Michelle to be an active participant; she is consistently engaged with lots of questions and interesting inputs. Michelle handed me a letter during our last program from her sister, and I’d like to share some of what Naomy wrote. Dear Madam, …I am just a new student […]
MEET ANNA
MEET ANNA*: (*name changed to protect privacy) Anna was orphaned when her parents died of AIDS and lives with relatives. We sat down to talk one day and she began relaying some horrific events from her childhood. I couldn’t hold back tears. What do you say to someone who’s endured the unimaginable? What do you […]
MEET SYLVIA
Sylvia is a girl who was taken in by relatives and in return, does most of the housework for a large family. She surprised me though because rather than lament about how exhausted she is from the long school days, endless homework, weekend classes and housework, she talked excitedly about what she loved most: running. […]
MEET PHENA
MEET PHENA: Phena is an exuberant young woman. We can always count on her to contribute limitless passion, spunk and humor to our workshops. Well loved by all the Yayaz girls and most especially us. After our program last year we visited Phena’s home and met her lovely family. We heart Phena!
MEET ANGELA
When we first met Angela she could barely lift her eyes from the ground when we asked for her name. She shuffled her feet, whispered an answer and met our eyes for only the briefest of seconds. Girls like Angela make us wonder if they’ll be able to assert themselves when necessary. During our Feminine […]
Guest blogger: Diedra
So here at the Nabutilu Foundation we love to hear stories about volunteerism and what it means to people. It is for that reason that we are going to have guest bloggers share their stories about volunteering and the difference it has made in their own lives as well as the lives of others. Enjoy! […]
Stay in action
So it has taken me almost a year to finally put up our documentary project “I am strong” on Indiegogo. Boy, I tell ya it was like wading through molasses! As I think about this period it makes me think about a quote I saw recently by Thomas Edison, “opportunity is missed by most people […]
Connections
Last weekend Khatundi and I were among the 2000 people who attended the 3rd annual Women in the World Summit in New York. Organized by Tina Brown, Editor in Chief of Newsweek and The Daily Beast, the summit was a three-day, well-orchestrated stream of passionate world-figures discussing a range of important women’s issues. My favorite […]
Go.Forth.Serve!
I love that l have had several profound life lessons that have made me into who I am. As a high school student some fourteen years ago in Boston I remember this lesson as if it happened yesterday. I was waiting for the bus on a cold Massachusetts day with an elderly gentleman who seemed […]
Haiti
I just read two articles about post earthquake Haiti. One was in the February 2012 Marie Claire magazine and the other in the February 2011 Mother Jones magazine. It’s shocking to me that these pieces were written a year apart and yet they express the same thing: sexual violence against women and girls in the […]
