The Asia Foundation

Women's Empowerment Program: Our Impact

Partner Highlight: Women for Prosperity (Cambodia)

The Asia Foundation is a founding supporter of Women For Prosperity, a local Cambodian organization dedicated to increase women's political participation by supporting women to take on leadership roles in their community. Since 1994, Women for Prosperity has worked to strengthen women's leadership skills, promote women's legal rights and advocacy, train female candidates to successfully win seats in national and local elections, and build solidarity among women leaders across political party lines and provincial borders.

Program Highlights:

- Trained over 1,200 women in vocational skills, marketing, and enterprise development in Pakistan. As a direct result, these women have started over 400 new small businesses and were able to significantly increase their families' incomes.

- Supported over 2,600 men to participate in community-based violence prevention workshops in camps for internally displacement persons in Nepal.

- Developed a three-month course to enable Afghan girls to pass the national college entrance exams. In the first year, more than 80 percent of the class was able to enroll in university.

- Worked with our local partners in the Philippines to help rescue 113 human trafficking or potential human trafficking victims at the International Airport in Manila in 2009 alone.

Accomplishments with Lotus Circle Support

Afghanistan Challenge Update

Thanks to the generous support of Lotus Circle members and other individuals, we raised $80,000 and met our matching grant goal for the Afghanistan Challenge.

Last December, The Women's Empowerment Fund received two $40,000 matching grants from the National Geographic Society and the Sheridan-Urbanski Family to improve girls' schools that were devastated by years of fighting in Afghanistan. With subsequent funding from the Janet Ketcham Familiy Foundation, we have begun repairs on Lama-e-Shaheed Girls' School in Kabul.

Thanks again for your support! We could not have done it without you.

Microcredit for Poor Women in Aceh, Indonesia

For Ibu Wulan, a school-teacher and mother of three, a loan through her women's lending cooperative allowed her to start a business raising and selling ducks to supplement her family's meager income. After successfully repaying her first loan, she took a second, larger loan to expand her business and started a sewing cooperative. She is proud of her success and her ability to provide more income to give her family a better life.

Launched in collaboration with United Way International and with the support of our generous Lotus Circle donors and others, these lending cooperatives throughout Aceh are administered by local women and have provided loans to 42 women's groups in Aceh that have a combined membership of over 1,500 women.

Vocational Training and Job Placement for Disadvantaged Women in Vietnam

Last year, the Lotus Circle launched a vocational training program in Can Tho, Vietnam for disadvantaged women and those at risk of trafficking and exploitation. This program trains women in market-based skills and assists with job-placement after the training is completed. Participants in the program are being trained in culinary arts and hotel services, and will receive assistance to find jobs in the growing tourist industry.

With additional Lotus Circle support, we recently expanded this successful program to include HIV-positive women in the province of Phu Tho. For women like Nguyen Ngoc Bich this training is a valuable tool to improve her life. Born to poor parents with no land, Bich was forced to drop out of high school and help her parents and ill sister survive. With this training, Bich has a new sense of optimism that she will be able to find a job to better support her family.

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Learn More about The Women's Empowerment Program.

Back to the Women's Empowerment Fund.