Help Vulnerable Women Become Leaders of Change

Global Grassroots held its annual Gathering of Graduates from its Conscious Change Academy in Kigali this August. Over 75 grassroots change agents attended, enjoying new workshops on conciousness practices, creative problem-solving and financial sustainability. Joining us from the US were graduate student Lydia Humenycky of Carnegie Mellon University, Melissa Collum - a Fulbright Fellow and social studies teacher from Wisconsin, and Jennifer Holden - former board member, athlete manager and photographer from Utah.

Over the course of 10 weeks in the field, Lydia completed an in-depth Impact Assessment of our Academy program. Her analysis show Global Grassroots is moving steadily towards its goals in supporting marginalized women in becoming leading change agents. In only two years, we have helped establish 11 civil society organizations, 6 of which are moving into their 2nd and 3rd year of operations! Our graduates' ventures have collectively touched upwards of 40,000 lives across Rwanda, combating domestic violence, illiteracy, sexual exploitation and lack of clean water. We invite you to download our 2009 Project Portfolio which we have just posted under our GlobalGiving profile to learn more about each project you have helped make possible by supporting our Conscious Change Academy.

Over a dozen projects remain in our pipeline, which we have also just begun to post separately on GlobalGiving.com. Please consider supporting a specific project by searching under Global Grassroots or projects supporting Women and Girls in Rwanda. Our goal is to launch 10 more projects by year end. Thank you for your continued support of our work.