Today is Blog For International Women’s Day. This page gives you more information on what this post is part of. This year, we are to answer one of these two questions:

–What does “equal rights for all” mean to you?
–Describe a particular organization, person, or moment in history that helped to mobilize a meaningful change in equal rights for all.
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I chose: –Describe a particular organization, person, or moment in history that helped to mobilize a meaningful change in equal rights for all.

Equal rights for all means a lot me. While I am (99 percent of the time) proud to be an American, developed countries like the one I call home get every advantage when it comes to disaster relief, medicine availability, medical advancements, food availability and countless other basic needs.

In the developing world, women (along with children) are the group that sadly sees the advancements last. During my 7 years working for a large international NGO, I saw a lot being done to try to even the playing field for women. Programs were created in times of famine or disaster to make sure women receive rations to feed their families– otherwise larger (and stronger) men hoarded the food. Women were shown how to create micro credit savings and loan groups to help save money without the “permission” from their fathers or husbands needed.

Women were given information — for instance that they had the right to vote in a local or national election; not told who they had to vote FOR, just that they had the right to help choose a leader– or that they had the right to a healthy pregnant and delivery, or that breastfeeding might be the best for their infant.

I learned that information is power– and that once women in the developing world receive information and they have a voice, equality makes a giant leap forward.

The organization that has made great strides for equal rights, in my mind, is CARE. Just read their What We Do statement:

CARE tackles underlying causes of poverty so that people can become self-sufficient. Recognizing that women and children suffer disproportionately from poverty, CARE places special emphasis on working with women to create permanent social change. Women are at the heart of CARE’s community-based efforts to improve basic education, prevent the spread of HIV, increase access to clean water and sanitation, expand economic opportunity and protect natural resources. CARE also delivers emergency aid to survivors of war and natural disasters, and helps people rebuild their lives.

To learn more about CARE, please visit www.care.org.