Help Vulnerable Women Become Leading Change Agents

Global Grassroots is proud to present our interactive annual magazine, Portraits of Transformation, available online at www.globalgrassroots.org/annualmagazine

Meet the individuals, families, and communities that drive our work.

Explore stories of personal growth and social change, told through photography, writing, and video.

Discover inspiration in their reflections, challenges, and triumphs.

...Please join us in celebrating our impact in 2011, and looking ahead to new growth and continued transformation in 2012.

Global Grassroots works to support women change agents among survivors of war and disaster. Under-served, undereducated, and overburdened, these women would otherwise lack the resources to promote systemic change. But they have profound wisdom about their communities and innovative ideas for social change. Their resilience, courage, and creativity are transforming the world, one community at a time. 

These are their stories…

"The [Global Grassroots] training has taught me to think big... Now, I can go somewhere and knock and ask for a grant or anything.  Apart from that, in my own community, I have become a conflict resolver.  If in the neighborhood there is a conflict, women come to me – they trust me.  I go with them to solve those conflicts.  It helps me to change the quality of life in my community.”         

- Jeanette Muteteri, treasurer of Have a Good Life

“Now I feel like I can move... I can join the other people...I have come to understand my own value.  I know that I can participate in the team.  I can help them; I can give my ideas.”

- Christine Nyirandeya, team advisor of People of Love

Release of Global Grassroots’ 2011 Impact Assessment: 

Over the course of ten weeks, Julia Oakley, a dual Masters student from Columbia University conducted an independent impact assessment of our Academy for Conscious Change in Rwanda. The following is an excerpt. Download our full Impact Assessment here. 

The social impact of Global Grassroots via its trained and funded ventures is approximately 32,500 Rwandans... Most teams are able to measure their social impact in some form, and all operating Global Grassroots ventures have visible signs of positive impact on their communities. Some, like Let Us Build Ourselves and Construct the Family, work intensively with their target populations; others, such as Light In Our Home, have more of an indirect but possibly widespread social impact….Global Grassroots should support teams to maximize their potential social impact on one hand, but continue to prioritize self-initiated growth and idea generation on the other. Global Grassroots' strategy of participatory development in fostering the creativity and levering the inner knowledge of local persons is its strongest asset and its key to sustainable social impact.

On vocational skills and health/women's rights training for vulnerable populations: 

“I know how to claim my rights and how to help other women to claim their rights, too. This helps me be safe and independent.”  -Beneficiary of Construct the Family

On girls’ sanitation and reproductive health:

"Now I am able to discuss with my children reproductive health and change of life, and tell them this is normal. I encourage them to share this with me. Before, I was ashamed to talk about it, but now I no longer have that shame and I can advise them about the consequences of their actions. This project has helped me to know my responsibilities as a parent and as a neighbor. We need to support girls and promote a bright future for them."   -Beneficiary of Think About The Young Girls

Global Grassroots Hosts Training for New Conscious Change Practitioners

This fall, Global Grassroots hosted seven women representing three countries (America, Rwanda, and Haiti) to participate in the first training of trainers in our curriculum, methodology, philosophy and trauma-healing skills for the Academy for Conscious Change.  Over the course of two weeks, participants learned how to work with traumatized populations, how to use mind-body skills to reset the nervous system and address post-traumatic stress, how to use participatory development methods to catalyze locally-led solutions in a developing country among a foreign culture, how to use their own understanding of personal transformation to support conscious leadership in others, and how to develop a sustainable non-profit from scratch.

Having completed the curriculum training, these new Conscious Change Practitioners will next conduct a pilot volunteer training with a partner organization in the US, and participate in a year-long correspondence course in personal transformation for change agents. Once certified, Global Grassroots Practitioners will take a leadership role in expanding our programs in new countries with interested partner organizations.

Please contact us if you are interested in learning more about how to bring Global Grassroots' Academy for Conscious Change to your community.  

Global Grassroots Founder & President featured in Huffington Post:

Gretchen Wallace Empowers Women In Rwanda And Other Post-Conflict Societies

Our work has only been possible with your support, and we extend our deepest gratitude. We know that women have the potential to lead conscious social change, but many lack the resources and training to advance their own ideas. We need engaged investors to help us continue to support women’s initiatives for social change. Please consider a donation to help Global Grassroots continue to support the social ventures of grassroots change agents worldwide.

We are excited to share, Global Grassroots has begun the development of a web-based eAcademy for Conscious Change, which will allow women’s groups in developing countries globally to access our social entrepreneurship curriculum online. To date, we have received emails from over 160 women’s groups from 45 different countries requesting our programs. We will be choosing a pilot group of women's organizations from four continents to participate in the beta version of the elearning program.  Our online academy will be accessible for free, providing an interactive program that will support the development of grassroots-level social entrepreneurship projects. We anticipate the development of the site will be complete in late autumn for piloting, with a public launch in early 2012.

Next week Global Grassroots will launch its new Conscious Social Change certification program, with seven women from three countries.  Once certified, this corps of trainees will be able to deploy globally to offer our core program upon request to partner organizations. Global Grassroots is eager to collaborate through partnership to support women change agents in new communities.

This progress has only been possible with your support and we extend our deepest gratitude. As we expand, Global Grassroots needs engaged investors to help us make these exciting possibilities a reality. We know that women have the potential to lead conscious social change, but many lack the resources and training to advance their own ideas. Please consider a donation to help Global Grassroots continue to support the social ventures of grassroots change agents worldwide.