International Women's Day---Guest Post: Wake Up Campaign

Today is International Women’s Day, an occasion to celebrate women and girls’ remarkable potential, inherent worth and vital contributions to our communities. It’s also a day to recognize that millions of women and girls still confront threats to their safety, their health, their livelihoods and their dignity - and to advocate for solutions that can improve their lives.

Are you concerned with these issues? Then join the International Rescue Committee (IRC)’s Wake Up campaign. At rescue.org/wakeup, you can read stories of real women facing crisis – like Fatuma, whose daughter was assaulted on the daily trek for clean water in Somalia; Francine, who is working to overcome the wounds of sexual slavery in Congo; and Angele, a Cameroonian asylee who fled political turmoil in her home country and is slowly rebuilding her life in the United States. You can sign a pledge affirming your support for women and girls like these all over the world who are fighting for survival and struggling to endure. When you do, you’ll join the ranks of such notables as IRC Voice and “The Walking Dead” star Sarah Wayne Callies and actresses Téa Leoni, Alyssa Milano and Morena Baccarin. And you can use the tools in the IRC’s handy social action kit to share the pledge and raise awareness about what can be done to help – which makes you a part of the solution.

The IRC works to protect and empower women and girls in more than 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities, from Burundi to Baltimore. We’re joining with them on this special day, to take a stand for women and girls. We hope that you will, too. Sign the Wake Up pledge and pass it on!
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Article provided by Ruth Fertig of International Rescue Committee

In photo:
Lay Htoo, 20, looks at her newborn daughter Di Lay, born a few hours earlier in Tham Hin refugee camp’s maternity ward. Each year, 15 midwives trained by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) examine and support hundreds of women and children in the camp, which is near the Thailand-Myanmar border. (Photo: Peter Biro/IRC).