SILVER SPRING, MD (March 13, 2024) – The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is honoring National Women’s History Month by spotlighting the superb tales of the mission’s feminine leaders. The United Nations designated the 2024 Women’s theme, because the 12 months to encourage inclusion and spend money on girls’s progress.
For over 40 years, ADRA girls have made important contributions to worldwide communities by encouraging inclusion and empowerment by means of initiatives focusing on training, healthcare, and financial improvement. ADRA has performed an vital position in offering alternatives and fostering participation for ladies in underserved communities.
“We are proud to rejoice the outstanding achievements of our girls leaders. Their tales remind us of the unimaginable potential and energy that ladies maintain. By selling inclusion and offering equal alternatives, we are able to create a extra simply and affluent world for everybody,” says ADRA International Vice President for Sustainable Development Sonya Funna Evelyn.
The girls featured on this launch illustrate the robust community of feminine humanitarians whose contributions advance ADRA’s international mission to speed up progress.
Maja Ahac, Head of Advocacy for ADRA Europe
Maja Ahac dedicates her life to advocating for many who are stripped of their voice. The refugee, the kid, the lady. She is pushed in her work with a ardour for encouraging girls of all ages to persevere of their goals.
While Ahac spends her days fearlessly championing girls, her position as a mom is what conjures up her work.
“I’m an ADRA employee, however I’m additionally a mom. I’m a mom of 1 lady and two boys. It’s vital to me that each one my kids have equal alternatives. And that is what I need for all different kids and all different girls. We can’t be outlined by gender and be instructed ‘that is what you are able to do’ or ‘that is what you can’t do.’”
Ahac has encountered a whole bunch of girls from all world wide all through her work with ADRA. She vividly remembers her expertise with a mom named Elisabeth throughout a brand new faculty ceremony in Burundi in East Africa. While the remainder of the village celebrated their faculty, Elisabeth stood watchful to the facet, nursing her child.
Ahac sidled Elisabeth and requested what she considered the brand new faculty. Instead, Elisabeth checked out Ahac and mentioned, “It is so good that you simply visited us. A lady. You confirmed our women that ladies may handle tasks. Leading organizations. Be managers and leaders.”
Ahac, together with so many different humanitarians who serve with ADRA, conjures up girls day by day together with her work. Yet, in the event you ask her, she is going to let you know that she is much more impressed by women like Elisabeth who touched her life.
Sonya Funna Evelyn, ADRA International Vice President for Sustainable Development
Sonya Funna Evelyn is fearless and dedicated, and for 16 years she has been inspiring the ladies she reaches by means of her work with ADRA, and those that work throughout the ADRA community.
Born in Sierra Leone, West Africa, Sonya developed a powerful need to assist others from an early age. Immigrating to the United States as a toddler gave her entry to training, and seeing how her household again house didn’t have the identical alternatives and needed to cope with challenges starting from famine to violence impressed her to pursue a profession in humanitarian service and work for ADRA.
“The most vital lesson I’ve realized on this work is that all around the world individuals are the identical. We all need the identical issues out of life. The solely distinction is in our capacity to entry these issues.”
Sonya has witnessed appreciable development and shifts inside ADRA over her tenure. Through all of it, girls have been on the heart.
“The girls who work at ADRA are particular as a result of they’ve signed as much as face large challenges. And with out them, with out us, this group wouldn’t be what it’s. And so, we are able to’t speak about the place ADRA goes sooner or later if we don’t additionally speak about feminine management.”
Sonya is an integral a part of ADRA’s management. She joined the group as a technical well being advisor for well being and is presently the Vice President for Sustainable Development, offering strategic management for future development as ADRA implements a brand new international strategic framework.
As she outlines ADRA’s evolution over the previous a number of a long time, Sonya explains, “It’s not one thing that occurs accidentally. It’s as a result of the power of girls collectively can obtain immeasurable issues. And in the event you even have a look at the work that we do within the discipline, the information exhibits that if you wish to effectuate change in a neighborhood, give cash to the ladies. Because girls will reinvest of their homes, they’re invested of their households, they’re invested of their kids. And they’ve the power to vary total communities.”
Leiza Augsburger, Programs Director at ADRA Switzerland.
Leiza Augsburger studied legislation, however even after graduating, she realized it was not the profession she needed to pursue as a result of her true ardour was working with and close to folks. That’s when Augsburger first found ADRA, and he or she’s by no means regarded again.
Augsburger has served in a number of roles with ADRA, together with nation director for ADRA Togo. She finds inspiration in making others, notably girls, really feel seen and acknowledged. Augsburger enjoys telling the story of how she met a gaggle of girls who had attended an ADRA literacy program in Togo.
“I met some girls from one program in Togo, a literacy program, they usually have been so excited to point out me that they have been ready to make use of their cell telephones and to enter my quantity of their cell telephones by themselves,” recollects Augsburger.
Of course, everybody in Africa has a cellphone and is aware of the way to use it. But these girls couldn’t learn and had by no means been in a position to function their telephones independently.
While to many this will likely appear to be a trivial factor, Augsburger acknowledges that nothing that gives dignity for an individual is trivial.
“I imagine that certainly one of ADRA’s strongest impacts is that our work provides folks the chance to exist,” says Augsburger. “See, generally beneficiaries really feel like they’re clear. Nobody sees them. And then ADRA is available in, possibly with a small challenge that doesn’t appear too important to us, however what we did is acknowledge that the folks we served are human beings. And we give them the chance to develop.”
Judith Musvosvi, Country Director for ADRA Zimbabwe
Judith Musvosvi has been devoted to the mission of offering humanitarian assist for over a decade, and he or she joined ADRA in 2013 because the nation director for Zimbabwe. During her time at ADRA, she has managed a whole bunch of tasks and directed quite a few emergency response efforts. What conjures up her essentially the most is how ADRA’s community comes collectively time and time once more to carry gentle into the darkest of conditions.
When requested about her expertise working with the ADRA community, Musvosvi invariably mentions her Adventist household. The group is proud to be a member of a worldwide community that features hundreds of Seventh-day Adventist congregations that shortly band collectively throughout instances of disaster.
“What units ADRA aside is what we are able to obtain as a community and household,” says Musvosvi. “That beats something that we might be capable of accomplish as people.”
Musvosvi has witnessed the fortitude of ADRA’s household when coping with challenges in her personal nation. Her crew is ceaselessly the primary to reply and ship assist, due to robust partnerships with native Adventist church buildings and different nonprofit organizations.
“What I would really like the folks to find out about ADRA is that these of us who work for and with ADRA are real concerning the work we do. The thread that runs by means of us is that of being genuinely involved about folks,” Says Musvosvi.
ADRA hopes that sharing the experiences of feminine leaders inside its international community will foster acknowledgment and appreciation of girls’s achievements world wide. Visit ADRA.org to find extra about ADRA girls’s endeavors to advertise neighborhood development and development.
