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From the Executive Director

Vivian Stromberg

Dear Friends,

This week we had a visit from Yanar Mohammed, the founder of our sister organization, the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI). At a New York City gathering in celebration of Mother's Day and the courageous work of OWFI, Yanar shared stories of the women who have escaped abuse and even murder thanks to the women's shelters that OWFI founded with the support of MADRE members. Violence against women has escalated sharply in Iraq since the US invasion. MADRE and OWFI responded by opening women's shelters in Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Erbil, and creating leadership training and education programs for women to build alternatives to a life of abuse-and participate effectively in building a secular, democratic, and truly sovereign Iraq.

Many of the women who arrive at the shelters were forced to leave school by the fourth grade and forced to marry as teenagers. For them-as for all of us-"democracy" in the political arena is only meaningful if it safeguards their right to make basic decisions about their lives. OWFI is working hard to make sure that women's rights are protected under the new Iraqi Constitution, and, at the same time, providing women at the shelters with counseling, schooling, computer classes, and other skills-training to give them the tools to move from seeing themselves as victims to seeing themselves as agents of change-in their own lives and in their country.

The urgently needed women's shelters in Iraq are just one example of the dozens of different MADRE programs at work in 12 countries right now, thanks to your support. Please click here for ways you can support MADRE's programs. Thank you for your commitment to this important work.

Sincerely,

Vivian Stromberg
Executive Director

P.S. In July, there will be an opportunity to visit another of our sister organizations, this one in Kenya. I'd like to invite each of you to join MADRE for this very special trip. Please click here for more information.