Unleashed Women is the world’s first female-led movement empowering women to end hunger by 2030.
There are women out there who are hungry and quite literally starved of education, equal rights and opportunities. They are also subjected to violence, suffer fatally from maternal and child health, not to mention child marriage and gender equality.
The Unleashed Women movement was created by The Hunger Project, a global NGO working to empower people to end their own hunger in rural, remote India, Bangladesh, Africa and Latin America.
The aim of Unleashed Women is to help women in these areas unlock their leadership, capacity and creativity so that they can be self-reliant and end their own hunger, with a particular focus on empowering women and girls.
Unleashed Women will mobilise Australian women who are hungry for something else in their lives: purpose, meaning, connection, leadership and empowerment.
Sadly, many women in the world are still not deemed worthy of an education. On average, girls receive only six years of formal education in their lives, dramatically limiting their future job opportunities.
STATISTICS ABOUT WOMEN IN THE WORLD WE ALL NEED TO KNOW
- 1 in 3 (35%) of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.
- Approximately 70% of the world’s poor are women.
- A staggering 99% of the approximate 287,000 maternal deaths every year occur in developing countries.
- More than 700 million women in the world today were married as children, before the age of 18. Shockingly, more than 1 in 3 of these women —or some 250 million—were married before they turned 15. Not only are these young girls denied their childhood; they can suffer from developmental issues due to early pregnancy, are vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases including HIV, have limited opportunities for education and employment, and are at an increased risk of domestic violence.
]
UNLEASHED WOMEN: HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED
To join the movement, women can sign up as an individual or a team at unleashedwomen.org.au. Each Unleashed Woman has a fundraising goal of $1,000 by 31st December 2016. All Unleashed Women are then asked to mobilise at least five other women in their lives to join the movement too. Throughout the fundraising period, women are encouraged to connect with other women in the movement and to support each other along their journey. The more women who join Unleashed Women, the more impact can be made in empowering women living in chronic hunger to transform their communities to become self-reliant. Every Unleashed Woman who reaches their $1,000 fundraising target will be invited to the Unleashed Women events held nationally in March 2017, during the week of International Women’s Day.
With the $1,000 that each individual woman raises, The Hunger Project could:
- Train 800 mothers about the importance of a healthy diet, to break the cycle of malnutrition that stunts children’s growth and development.
- Give 60 women a start-up micro finance loan to start or grow a small business, to create income for their families.
- Empower 30 women to become ‘Animators’, local volunteer leaders who train their fellow villagers on issues such as education, sanitation and stopping child marriage. The Hunger Project aim to raise $250,000 from the movement in its first year, which will go to their programs empowering women in Africa, India and Bangladesh.
- The movement has the support of amazing Australian women who have joined as Unleashed Women ambassadors including Camilla Franks (Founder, Camilla), Tania Austin (Founder Decjuba), Olivia Ruello (CEO, Business Chicks), Victoria Black (Publisher & Editor-In-Chief, Wildfire Publishing), Genevieve Davidson (Founder and Owner of Fitbodz fitness centers), Susannah George (Founder, The Urban List) and Kasia Gospos (Founder, Leaders in Heels).
Remember “One woman can make a difference, but together we can rock the world’
To find out more visit Unleashed Women.
