Happy International Women’s Day!
This awareness day has been celebrated in different ways around the world for over 100 years. While we’ve made significant progress during that time, barriers to gender equality still exist in many areas. This year at SPRING, we’re making a #PledgeforParity to increase gender equality and empower women as we work to end malnutrition. Poor nutrition is a serious problem for millions of people around the world, and it can be especially dangerous for pregnant women and adolescent girls. If a pregnant woman is undernourished or anemic, she faces a difficult birth and her child faces increased health risks. Anemia affects about half a billion women of reproductive age around the world and at SPRING, we’re working to highlight this by bringing anemia into the spotlight through our AREA Community of Practice.
Education and promotion of healthy habits is another way to address malnutrition and help women live healthier lives. Our community media work, recently highlighted in a photo essay on USAID’s Exposure site, is a way for us to work directly with rural women, teaching them about how to improve nutrition for themselves and their families. These videos help empower women as they learn more about nutrition and health, and then see positive changes in their family’s lives.
Gender parity can mean many different things – the right to vote, the right to work, the right to choose one’s spouse, the right to have children or not – and it includes the right to healthy food and the ability to make educated decisions about nutrition, for oneself and family members. Our work is helping build gender parity, one step at a time, as we continue fighting against malnutrition. Join us in our #PledgeforParity!
Follow our Twitter feed (@SPRINGProject2) to learn more about #IWD2016 and how you can join the #PledgeforParity campaign. To learn more about our projects relating to #IWD2016, read our blog on JSI's The Pump and visit our website.