In our first year in operation, we hit the ground running. We built partnerships with two remarkable women’s organisations, the Women’s Foundation Nepal (WFN) and the Stung Treng Women’s Development Centre (SWDC) in Cambodia, and co-designed and delivered our first pilot program in Nepal.
The Global Women's Project launched in August 2013. Our purpose? To address the lack of education and job opportunities for women in developing countries, and lack of choice and independence that goes hand in hand with it.
Nepal
In our first year, we collaborated with the Women's Foundation Nepal (WFN) and experts from Australia and Nepal to deliver Light the Spark - a six week training pilot program for women in basic electrical house wiring. 13 women participated in the pilot, telling us in our post-program evaluation how greatly their self-perception had changed when they had realised they could do 'a man's job'. We were excited to see such an appetite amongst local women and our partners for innovative programs like this one, and that participants felt so powerful for having acquired a new technical skillset!
Cambodia
In Cambodia, we worked to identify how and where we could best be of support to the Stung Treng Women's Development Center (SWDC). We contributed funding towards their child care centre operating costs, and therefore helped provide a crucial service to women in the community. We also designed and restored a new billboard in Stung Treng Province advertising SWDC and its associated textile business, Mekong Blue, to increase local traffic and sales.
Acknowledgements
A huge thank you to all of our wonderful volunteers and supporters who donated, attended our events, joined our mailing list, and engaged with us on social media.
A special thanks to our Foundation Funders, who provided critical seed funding to help the organisation get off the ground: Marg and Ross Pagano; Jill Lawrence and Justin Mackenzie; Andrea Blake; Nicola Boase and Nathan Jones; Nathan Clarke; Sue and Bernard Forde; Sue and Bob Hawker; Andrew Hooper-Nguyen and Julie Englefield; Alexandra Lee Jennings; Sue and Jon Johnston; Sarah and Heath Kilgour; Jill and Greg Kitch; Shanaz and Mark Landau; Danielle Martin; Dan and Nicole McLaughlin; Saul and Lauren Ryan; Prakash and Sarah Patel; Joanna and Jared Phillips; Rosalind and Angelo Scasserra; Paul Tyndale-Bisco; Tammy and Chris White; Frontline Innovations; Massage to Motivate; and G.A.T.E.WAYS.
In our first year we operated under the auspices of International Needs Australia, a strategic partnership allowing us to receive tax deductible donations.
