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The Future Of WHEW: International Outreach According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), nearly 50% of the people living in underdeveloped countries are uneducated. West Africa has the lowest coverage of drinking water and sanitation in the world, and the numbers are rising, not falling. According to UNESCO’s Regional overview on sub-Saharan Africa, in 2000 only 58% of children were enrolled in primary schools, the lowest enrollment rate of any region. Africa has more than 40 million children,
almost half the school-age child population, receiving no schooling. Two-thirds of these are girls.
WHEW seeks to not only address problems that are being faced by women of color in America, but to link disenfranchised and marginalized women around the world who are facing similar
challenges in order to help them empower one another. Thus, Phase II will encompass an international component.
WHEW believes in the idea of “not reinventing the wheel.” It would be wiser to model and emulate programs that have already been proven successful, like Muhammad Yunus’ and the Grameen Bank’s micro-loan program in Bangladesh and Wangari Maathai’s Green Belt Movement. Therefore, WHEW’s proposed projects are the following: - Water Improvement –To provide access to clean water and to become public educators and advocates against water privatization policies.
- Reforestation–To train residents to properly plant and cultivate seedlings for profitable crops and assist in reforestation to generate a source of income for themselves.
- Education Project–To build schools in villages and provide sufficient resources and materials to be used for education.
- Micro Loan–To provide small loans to community groups of women who make handcrafts and other creative cultural crafts. WHEW will also provide a cyclical sustainable employment partnership by providing these handcrafts to be sold by the women referred by WHEW.
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