Since 1993, Women for Women International has helped thousands of socially excluded women, who are often a family’s sole breadwinner and caregiver, to overcome the horrors of war and civil strife — family loss and widowhood, rape, murder, forced migration, poverty, starvation, trafficking and torture — in ways that can help them rebuild their lives, families and communities.
The organization was founded by a wife and husband, Zainab Salbi and Amjad Atallah, who were motivated to act after learning of the plight of women in rape camps in the former Yugoslavia and the slow response of the international community. The organization launched its activities by creating “sister-to-sister” connections between sponsors in the United States and women survivors of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In its first year, Women for Women International worked with eight women, distributing about $9,000 in direct aid. As the organization gained experience in the field, its staff came to understand that financial assistance alone was not enough to create deeper change in the lives of women who had lost everything. Women, especially those widowed by war, needed to develop marketable skills, cultivate an understanding of their rights and potential as women and create secure ways to earn an income for years to come. In so doing, women could gradually build the strength and stature they needed to survive the horrors of war and eventually become active members of their communities.
Since 1993, Women for Women International has expanded its operations to serve 120,000 women survivors of war and distributed $33 million in direct aid and microcredit loans. Women for Women International now serves women in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Kosovo, Nigeria, Rwanda and Sudan (2006) and builds one-to-one connections with more than 23,000 sponsors in all 50 states of the U.S. and 55 other countries.
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