Women and Girls

2024 Christmas Project: Afia's Story

aheckman — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 20:43:54 +0000

2024 Christmas Project: Afia's Story aheckman Thu, 12/26/2024 - 20:43

2024 Christmas Project: Afia's Story

Gender inequality is a significant driver of global poverty rates, denying women and girls of their inherent, God-given dignity. In many cultures, women face barriers—even in their own homes—that limit their opportunities to learn and support themselves and their families. At least 60 percent of individuals living with chronic, extreme hunger are women and girls. In countries impacted by fragility, conflict, and violence, girls are 2.5 times more likely to be out of school than boys. Women make up more than two-thirds of the world’s illiterate population.

Empowering women to earn an income and support their families helps close these and other gender gaps. Education and employment lead to widespread benefits, including improved child nutrition, better health, and opportunities like small business ownership.

Nazarene Compassionate Ministries is working in partnership with local Nazarene churches in Ethiopia, Liberia, and Ghana to support the empowerment and dignity of women and girls. Through projects that open doors to education alongside vocational training and job placement assistance, women and their families are finding hope for a better and more secure future.

When you give to the 2024 NCM Christmas Project, you will help unlock the skills and resources women need to transform lives and communities.

Read on for Afia's story and learn how entering a vocational training course has helped her open her own business and grow in confidence.

Afia* is a young mother who lives in Ethiopia. Due to her family’s economic situation, a formal education remained out of Afia’s grasp during her childhood. Like many children forced to grow up without schooling, Afia struggled with her self-esteem and confidence.

“According to my mind, I feel that I don’t have any ability to study or discover any things on earth,” she confessed. “In my background, women never try to work; we are hopeless and stay in our houses. I just waited [to receive] what my husband [gave] us. I believed all women are like me.”

When Afia heard about the women’s vocational training project near her home, she didn’t fully grasp the scope or purpose.

“My neighbor told me about it and encouraged me to visit,” Afia recounts. “I met the woman who is leading the project and asked her, ‘How will you help us? Will you give us food or medicine?’”

The leader's answer surprised her. She had nothing to give, but she promised to teach Afia a different way to get food and medicine.

“She asked me, ‘Are you ready to study? Would you like to know how to read and write and understand math?’ I said no because I am a mother, I am not like children, I don’t have a good mind to understand things.”

The leader pressed further, assuring Afia that she was capable of learning new skills. She even promised Afia that her children would be cared for during the class sessions.

That encounter and the classes that followed made all the difference in Afia’s life. She can now read and write in her language, comprehend basic math skills, and learn how to provide beauty treatments to earn income for her family. The project leaders walked her through the process of opening a bank account and setting up a mobile phone plan—essential aspects of running a successful small business.

“I am a businesswoman,” Afia says proudly. “I make good income. I [have a] mobile salon and go house by house to [apply] henna and makeup. I support my kids and my husband.”

Afia has become an evangelist for the vocational project and has encouraged many other women in her area to seek the same type of life change she experienced.

“I never dreamed [I would be] where I am right now,” she shares. “My kids will go to school next year!”

One step at a time, Afia is contributing to her family’s next goal—they’re hoping to build a home. Because of the vocational training project in Ethiopia and her courage to try something new, that dream is closer than ever before.

*Name is changed for protection.

Christmas

Christmas Project

Economic Development

Women and Girls

2024 Christmas Project: Sado's Story

aheckman — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 17:21:57 +0000

2024 Christmas Project: Sado's Story aheckman Thu, 12/19/2024 - 17:21

2024 Christmas Project: Sado's Story

When you give to the 2024 NCM Christmas Project, you will help unlock the skills and resources women need to transform lives and communities.

Read on for Sado's story of how beauty treatment courses and reading and math education have helped her find purpose and community connection.

“We have grown up with the pain of life and hopelessness.”

Sado, 18, lives in Ethiopia with her mother and 10 siblings, ranging in age from eight to 28. Her father's departure several years ago ushered the family into perpetual instability. Food wasn’t always readily available, and times were hard.

“We mostly waited for food aid organizations who support refugees and needy people,” she shared. “We have also been homeless, just sleeping in forest areas or [near] farms.”

Sado’s story is not uncommon. Food security is a major concern in Ethiopia, and female-headed households are more likely to have less access to nutritious food and lower earning potential, a disparity that widened during the COVID-19 pandemic. To support her family, Sado helped care for her siblings, but getting an education and bringing in an income seemed impossible.

Sado’s life began to change when she enrolled in community vocational training courses in Ethiopia. She learned to read and do basic math and gained skills in henna art and beauty treatments—skills that enabled her to find work and improve her family’s outlook.

“I tell you seriously, my life was utterly changed,” she says about the project’s impact. “I never had any opportunity to read and write, but now I do. I have skills, and now I can get a job quickly.”

Sado’s mother also joined the project and received training in beekeeping and business. Together, the two women hope for an improved future in which they struggle less and are more tied to their community.

“Before we got out of bed in the morning [at] 11 am, it meant no hope, no work ... now, my mother and I get up early in the morning. She goes to a bee-keeping center and works with the team and [earns] income there, getting experience and friends. I make breakfast for the kids and try my make-up with the village girls. Now we have connections and friends.”

Sado’s not done dreaming about her future. After she graduates this year, her goals range from finding regular income herself to building a house for the family and sending all her siblings to school. Sado’s mother is quickly rising in the ranks of the project—she now leads other enrolled women, helping them gain the skills she has acquired.

“We already have hope and life, but want to continue this opportunity,” shares Sado.

2024 Christmas Project: Olivia and Solome's Story

aheckman — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 15:36:28 +0000

2024 Christmas Project: Olivia and Solome's Story aheckman Fri, 12/13/2024 - 15:36

2024 Christmas Project: Olivia and Solome's Story

When you give to the 2024 NCM Christmas Project, you will help unlock the skills and resources women need to transform lives and communities.

Read on for Olivia and Solome's story of how catering courses set their lives on new paths.

Olivia beams as she recites all the food she has learned to cook.

“Spaghetti, BBQ beans, pigs in a blanket, meat pie, fish pie,” she shares. “People call me, and I will make their wedding cakes.”

Olivia at her food stand.

Since taking a church-led vocational training course for women in Liberia, Olivia has been busy in the kitchen. Her big goal is to run the largest catering company in her country.

“I see myself moving forward,” says Olivia. “I’m not discouraged. I’m not like the way I used to be before.”

Prior to enrolling in the catering course, Olivia felt stuck and didn’t have a way to earn money. When she needed funds, she had to ask her parents to supply what was needed.

“Now, if I want something, I can take it from my profit,” she says proudly.

Solome also enrolled in a catering course at another training center in Liberia. She had long been curious about improving her cooking skills, and the affordable training course gave her a path to growth.

“Before entering the program, I was lost ... I used to wonder how people fix these foods. All day I sit home to await my partner for money. It was sometimes embarrassing to keep asking for money.”

It wasn’t long before Solome’s outlook brightened. She enjoyed time with her classmates, and looked forward to learning new things every day.

“Now, I can sit home and fix cakes for ... birthday parties, and any food of my choice,” she reports.

Olivia and Solome are just two out of many students who have found new pathways to financial security through these vocational projects—in Liberia, along with Ghana and Ethiopia. Upon graduating, many students share their long-term goals.

Solome’s preparation was all focused on the eventual goal of opening her own shop, “where I can sell different kinds of cooked food, including catering for different occasions,” she shared.

She isn’t intimidated by complicated recipes anymore, either, and she’s hopeful that others will take advantage of the life-changing education found in the center.

“Since I enter [the project], I have more ideas; [cooking] is very simple to me now. I wish for every woman to learn this to help themselves and their families.”

2024 Christmas Project: Gifty's Story

aheckman — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 17:11:09 +0000

2024 Christmas Project: Gifty's Story aheckman Tue, 12/10/2024 - 17:11

2024 Christmas Project: Gifty's Story

When you give to the 2024 NCM Christmas Project, you will help unlock the skills and resources women need to transform lives and communities.

Read on for Gifty's story of life change.

In Ghana, several Nazarene congregations and leaders from Nazarene Compassionate Ministries have developed a vocational training institute for women. The institute’s courses have had a profound effect on students like Gifty, a young woman who has seen her life change as a result.

“My life has changed from negative to positive,” she proclaims. “I have learned that whatever your situation is, you can do something to change it.”

Gifty’s father died when she was young, setting her and her many siblings on a course lined with obstacles.

“We suffered a lot during this time,” she says. “Many things were not good, but most of all, getting food was very difficult. It was also difficult to pull myself through school—there was no money.”

In Ghana, even public schools come with fees. There was no way for Gifty’s mother to manage the expenses for all her children.

A Nazarene pastor, Rev. Frank, heard about their difficulties and offered to pay for school for Gifty. However, a variety of factors prevented her from graduating. Looking for a better fit, he helped her enroll in the women’s vocational skill courses, and Gifty soon realized she was in the right place.

“I am happy to have been introduced to this opportunity,” she shares. “I didn’t imagine that I could learn so many things at one go!”

Gifty learned to make soap, fabric softener, shower gels, and various baked goods. Courses in financial management rounded out her studies, and soon, the institute’s leaders decided Gifty’s talents could make a real difference for the other students. Now, Gifty is a coordinator for one of the institute’s locations and helps to teach at another.

“I am very happy that I am able to give back to the community by offering my help as a thank-you for all that I have received,” she says. “I used to look down on myself, but now I am proud. I can do various things to help myself and other people in my community.”

Gifty’s younger siblings hope they can enroll soon and follow in her footsteps. Gifty has the same hopes for her family, and as the oldest, she is taking her role seriously.

“I hope that my siblings do not go through the difficulties that I went through in life. That is why I am working hard to support my mother so she can provide a better future for them,” she shares.

From vocational skills to business training and financial management advice, the institute has opened new doors for Gifty and developed her growing leadership skills. Now she’s saving money to open a business that sells soap, and has no doubt about the ripple effects that radiate out from the institute.

“All this will benefit the community,” Gifty says. “When we are able to contribute to the society positively, our community benefits.”

Gifty’s dream of running a big business is only just beginning, but for now, she has all the building blocks necessary to improve her economic outlook and that of her family’s, one container of soap at a time.

2024 Christmas Project: Fundraising Ideas For Your Church

aheckman — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 18:54:04 +0000

2024 Christmas Project: Fundraising Ideas For Your Church aheckman Wed, 11/27/2024 - 18:54

2024 Christmas Project: Fundraising Ideas For Your Church

When you give to the 2024 NCM Christmas Project, you will help unlock the skills and resources women need to transform lives and communities.

Read on for creative church-based fundraising ideas you can use to gather support for the Christmas Project this holiday season.

Women’s Tea Fundraiser

Because this year’s project supports women and girls, your church could host a women’s tea, open to girls and women of all ages. Invite the men of the church to host and serve the event. Ticket sales can directly go to the Christmas Project.

Dessert Auction

Round up your church’s best bakers and auction off cakes, pies, cookies, and more to the top bidders. Or, combine an auction with the women’s tea idea listed above, for an event with double the fundraising power!

Christmas Craft Fair or Market

Organize a holiday craft fair or market where church members and local crafters can sell handmade goods, crafts, and baked goods. The proceeds from the sales are combined to support the Christmas Project.

Christmas Caroling for a Cause

Organize a group of church members or students from your youth group to go caroling around the neighborhood or to local businesses, asking for donations to the Christmas Project in exchange for a performance.

Giving Tree

Set up a Christmas tree in your church lobby or foyer and place tags with varying donations on the tree. Encourage members to pick a tag and donate that amount to the Christmas Project.

"Walk for Women" Fundraising Walk or Run

Organize a fundraising walk or run event where church members walk or run in exchange for pledges or donations to the Christmas Project. You could set a specific distance (e.g., 5K) and invite participants to gather sponsorships from friends, family, and church members.

Christmas "Photo Booth" Fundraiser

Set up a festive Christmas photo booth at your church service or event, complete with holiday props. Ask for a donation to the Christmas Project for families or individuals to take professional or fun pictures in the booth.

Christmas Project Sunday

One Sunday in December, tell your congregation about this year’s project. Share the video and bulletin available at ncm.org/christmas, and take an offering to support the project.

We hope these ideas help fuel your creativity as you consider how your church can partner with the Christmas Project to make a difference this Christmas season.

Community Health Volunteers Create Change

Grace Tia — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 03:55:51 +0000

Community Health Volunteers Create Change Grace Tia Tue, 07/27/2021 - 03:55

Community Health Volunteers Create Change

Anne, 42, is a single mother of four children in Kenya. After her older sister got pregnant as a high school student, their father vowed to never educate another daughter.

Anne’s brother helped fund a tailoring course—without schooling, she would have had no marketable skills. For a while, Anne ran a sewing business. But then her sewing machine broke. During this time, her husband was away to find work in Nairobi; Anne didn’t have any source of income.

Over the two-year span that her husband had to be away, Anne’s community surrounded her, providing for her and her family in ways she never imagined. When the family was struggling to survive a critical time, they were surrounded by their church and their neighbors.

Now, Anne’s children have grown a little older – her oldest daughter is a student at university. She has more time on her hands, and she wants to use it to give back to the community that helped her.

“I am delighted to be even of small assistance to my community...”

The Church of the Nazarene, where Anne has long attended, is part of a new integrated community health project in partnership with Nazarene Compassionate Ministries. At the heart of the new project are the community health volunteers, community members who are trained and equipped to educate and aid their neighbors. They meet regularly and travel to remote areas in the community teach good sanitation practices as well as provide basic first aid care.

Anne was thrilled when her pastor about the volunteer program, and she dove in immediately. It felt like the vehicle for change in her community for which she had been yearning.

“I am delighted to be even of small assistance to my community,” she shares. “They stood by me when I needed them the most, and they still do.”

The project, like the issues of clean water and good health, is multi-faceted. One of the problems it seeks to address is access. In rural areas, medical care is often miles away, and many people don’t have access to reliable transportation. The misconception is that it is easier or safer to stay home rather than making the miles-long trip by foot. If the injury or illness is serious, though, this decision becomes the impossible between risking the walk or risking staying at home without medicine.

Anne, second from left, with other Community Health Volunteers

Community Health Volunteers act as a connection point between their neighbors and medical care. The volunteers aren’t providing medical care themselves; they work closely with clinics, hospitals, and other health institutions to strengthen a network of communication. For instance, they provide resources for mothers so they don’t give birth at home, where infant mortality rates are much higher.

“These activities have influenced family, my community, and me a great deal,” Anne says.

Volunteers in a training session

The effort of the volunteers, combined with the water, sanitation, and hygiene elements of the projects, are already beginning to transform communities. In one county, volunteers visited nearly 1,500 households in one quarter. They connected people with illnesses to their closest clinics, provided resources to expecting mothers, and led hygiene events at schools to empower children to stop illness from spreading through good hygiene practices.

“I am grateful for the training that has made me a community health volunteer,” Anne says.

Women and Girls

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7 Days of Praying for Women and Girls

Grace Tia — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 09:00:50 +0000

7 Days of Praying for Women and Girls Grace Tia Thu, 04/22/2021 - 09:00

7 Days of Praying for Women and Girls

We see in scripture that God creates both men and women in His image, sharing equal value and worth in His eyes. But in many places around the world, gender inequality leaves women and girls disproportionately vulnerable to discrimination, poverty, and violence.

Nazarene Compassionate Ministries partners with local churches around the world to support women and their families through self-help groups and small business creation, vocational training, small-scale farming, literacy education, child development centers, and other programs that help them see themselves as people who are valuable, capable, and equal because they are made in God’s image. When girls are able to continue their education and women are equipped to learn and pursue productive work, they lift the well-being of their entire families and eventually their communities.

This week, take time each day to pray for women and girls.

Day 1

In many societies where sons are preferred, unborn girls are aborted at higher rates than boys. Girls who survive until birth may be neglected, abandoned, or even killed. Pray for girls to be protected from all who fail to see their value.

Psalm 139:13–14, CEB You are the one who created my innermost parts; you knit me together while I was still in my mother’s womb. I give thanks to you that I was marvelously set apart. Your works are wonderful—I know that very well.

Day 2

Economic challenges and disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic can lead children, especially girls, to drop out of school. In some places, girls who lack a complete education are at higher risk for early marriage and pregnancy. Pray for girls worldwide to have equal access to education. Thank God for the opportunities that child sponsorship affords girls who might otherwise struggle to stay in school.

Proverbs 3:13, CEB Happy are those who find wisdom and those who gain understanding.

Day 3

In many places, women and girls often spend more than twice as much time as men and boys gathering water for their families. When they have to spend so much time gathering water, they aren’t able to go to school or work as often. Pray for clean water sources to be built in communities that lack easy access to water, and for protection for women and girls who spend hours every day on this task.

Isaiah 49:10, CEB They won’t hunger or thirst; the burning heat and sun won’t strike them, because one who has compassion for them will lead them and will guide them by springs of water.

Day 4

An estimated 71 percent of victims of human trafficking are women and girls. Pray for the safety of women and girls who are vulnerable to trafficking and for the healing of those who are survivors. Pray for their perpetrators to be brought to justice and repentance.

Proverbs 31:8, CEB Speak out on behalf of the voiceless, and for the rights of all who are vulnerable.

Day 5

The World Bank estimates that the pandemic pushed up to 124 million people into extreme poverty during 2020. Pray for women and girls struggling to support themselves and their families to have access to job skill training, like the Liberia Empowering Women With Dignity Program, which is empowering women to find hope for a better future.

Proverbs 16:3, CEB Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will succeed.

Day 7

For many women around the world, when their husbands die, they must cope with both their grief as well as losing a social safety net. Of the approximately 245 million widows globally, more than 115 million live in extreme poverty. Pray for the needs of widows to be met and for them to know they are valuable in God’s sight.

Deuteronomy 10: 17-18, CEB ...because the Lord your God is the God of all gods and Lord of all lords, the great, mighty, and awesome God who doesn’t play favorites and doesn’t take bribes. He enacts justice for orphans and widows, and he loves immigrants, giving them food and clothing.

Women and Girls

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Stitch and Gather: Providing Community for Those Living as Refugees

Grace Tia — Thu, 09 Jan 2020 06:53:38 +0000

Stitch and Gather: Providing Community for Those Living as Refugees Grace Tia Thu, 01/09/2020 - 06:53

Stitch and Gather: Providing Community for Those Living as Refugees

On an early spring morning in Kent, Washington, a group of women are gathered around a tall cutting table, watching Sandy Appl demonstrate how to use a rotary cutter. The device, which looks a lot like a tiny pizza cutter, makes cutting strips of fabric as easy as drawing a line.

Photo: World Relief Seattle

The four tables spanning the room are brightly illuminated by a wall of windows, making it easy to see small stitches. On the side opposite the windows, ironing boards stand ready to use; above them are posters with helpful English words and phrases. When one of the instructors isn’t teaching, the room is filled with chatting and laughter. Each of the eight sewing stations has a machine, a nameplate, and a small plastic crate of supplies and half-finished projects. Over the course of six weeks, the women will make a pillowcase, an oven mitt, a baby quilt, a tote bag, and a zippered pouch.

The women are part of Sewing With Purpose, a ministry of Kent Hillside Church—an International Church of the Nazarene, in partnership with World Relief Seattle. They are also all refugees who are resettled in Washington. Three times a week, they come to the church for two-hour classes and complete projects of increasing difficulty at their individual sewing stations.

Photo: Callie Stevens

CREATING COMMUNITY

Mursal Alemi had been in the United States for a little less than a month when her caseworker at World Relief Seattle told her about the class. She was a young mother with toddler-age twins, and she and her husband came from Afghanistan without any other family. Being here on their own was extremely lonely, she says; for a while, she cried every day.

Mursal with a blanket she made in the class.
Photo: Callie Stevens

So when she learned about a place where she could practice English and build community, she joined the sewing class for the very first cohort. Alemi is still friends with the women she met there. They regularly have gatherings at each other’s houses.

“Not the first time I’m coming, but after that ... I’m friends with a lot of people,” Alemi says. “Now I’m friends with a lot of people in the class.”

Sewing With Purpose was started in 2017 after World Relief Seattle conducted a focus group with some of the Afghan families who were being settled in Kent, though not all of the women who attend are from Afghanistan. Many, including Alemi, come on a special immigrant visa, or SIV, usually awarded to families in which the men worked as translators or other specialists with theUnited States military. So while their husbands had the opportunity to learn English, many of the women haven’t even had the opportunity to learn to read and write in their own languages.

Like Alemi, the women end up being isolated at home, unable to speak the language in a new country or develop any sort of community. They craved community and the ability to learn English without worrying about mixed-gender classes, which would be viewed as culturally inappropriate.

Photo: World Relief Seattle

With roles at both entities, Tahmina Martelly helps bridge the gap between World Relief Seattle and Kent Hillside. Martelly herself was an asylum seeker; she came to the United States from Bangladesh. For years, she has worked with those living as refugees or asylum seekers and knew there are challenges unique to women. She started wondering what could be done to help women with stories like Alemi’s. Martelly called around, but no one was offering a sewing class—certainly, there were none nearby with an ESL component. “[We were] basically figuring out, ‘Well, how could we do this?’” Martelly says. “And of course, I knew I could leverage our church.”

TRANSFORMING THE CHURCH

Kent Hillside had the space that World Relief Seattle didn’t; there were several classrooms in the building that were mostly being used as storage. But they still didn’t have supplies for the classes. They needed sewing machines, a curriculum that taught sewing and English, cutting tables, volunteers, childcare—the list seemed nearly insurmountable. Then, as the idea for a class was forming, a woman approached Martelly to offer her 10 sewing machines she had stored away. The woman, Jeanine Boyle, was an instructor for Singer Sewing Machine Company, and she knew how to write sewing tutorials. The class was starting to seem possible, after all.

Boyle and Martelly developed a curriculum that incorporated outcomes for learning English. Then Appl, the current main instructor, helped modify it.

“We’ve tried to make it as complete as possible and build well from the beginning to the end,” she says. “What they make in six weeks with just three mornings is mind-boggling.”

A few of the men in the church built the cutting tables, reducing the cost to $150 each instead of $2,000. Volunteers came to clean out the classrooms, transforming them into craft space, childcare space, and the sewing room. What used to be storing old choir robes and decorations became a place of life and stories.

—

The first cohort of classes started in January 2017. Martelly says they are always tweaking things in their curriculum, trying to get better each time. Initially, the ESL component was a little bit hard to pull off in addition to the large amount of sewing in each session. No one was really trained, and there wasn’t a specific time set aside. Now, an AmeriCorps service member is usually connected with the class through World Relief Seattle. In each session, the volunteer leads the students in 20 to 30 minutes of directed ESL exercises.

—

The church also hosts another non-traditional ESL class: Four days a week, the church hosts a Family Literacy Class run through World Relief Seattle for mothers and their children, from infants to 5 years old. The mothers and children engage in age-appropriate English classes before coming together to practice and learn activities that can be replicated at home. Women have the opportunity, then, to learn both English and ways to engage with their children. “So then they really learn together,” Martelly explains.

Photo: World Relief Seattle

Taken from the latest issue of NCM Magazine. Click here to read the article in its entirety.

Women and Girls

2024 Christmas Project: Afia's Story

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