Liberia - After 9 long months away due to COVID, I finally returned to Liberia in December and am very grateful to be here. We are perfecting a collective impact model for social change unlike anything anywhere. In celebration of this International Women’s Day 2021, I am reflecting on the millions of women and family members with whom we have been blessed to connect since our inception in the late 1990’s. An unbelievable journey, one I never could have imagined…

It has been an extraordinary year. Now more than ever it is time to help those in need. That is what the Foundation for Women does every single day. This holiday season you can change lives by joining with us:

• $2000 given by banker/friend/supporter Jennifer Harter built this house for David Browne and family.
• $1000 given by Paul and Barbara Insel feeds 40 families/500 people for a month.
• $500 given by Janie Davis keeps two girls in school for a year.
• $250 given by Tracy Eames funds two microfinance loans for women living on less than $2/day.

Please join us in giving a gift that changes lives with any amount. We will let you know about the lives you changed. Donate now.

My treasured Liberian staff person Calvin called at noon today and asked, "Are you sitting down?" My response, "What’s wrong Calvin?" with a deep sense of dread. "Your dear friend Evelyn died today." "NO!" was all I could say…Evelyn and I have been friends for years.  She lives alone in a small dirt-floor shack house around the corner from my home in Liberia. She would walk passed my front door daily with her plastic bucket filled with small things she tried to sell to anyone she encountered along the beach, her only source of "small-small" money. I often bought all the small bags of nuts and candies she had in her bucket, carefully counting out the total in Liberian dollars; always the equivalent of just a few US dollars. I would bring the treats to our FFW office and share them with the team, all of whom know of my dear friendship with Evelyn.

Dear Friends,
Anyone joining our FFW Circle of Giving will have the option of being connected to family in Liberia, just like our friend, banker and long-time supporter Jennifer: 

"Nearly four years ago, Deborah and the Foundation for Women connected me to the father of a family of four daughters in Liberia; one of the most impoverished countries on planet earth. At the time, the family had not eaten in days. I have provided financial support to the family, and every time I have an opportunity, I send a package of “essentials.” When I ask what the family needs, the priorities are internet/phone, toothpaste, soap, diaper cream, and candy for the kids. Imagine!" ​

Foundation for Women was recently endorsed by the Rotary Action Group for Microfinance and Community Development and featured in their online member communications. Here is the full article: 

​As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect every corner of the global economy, the impact of the virus on weak health systems and economies is only beginning to be foreshadowed. Countries with comparatively strong health systems have been catastrophically challenged by the pandemic, and as the virus spreads to poor countries, concern about the looming health crisis grows. In Liberia, where over 3 million people live below the poverty line, 97% of households do not have clean water or soap and access to personal protective measures and behaviors (such as masks, cleaning supplies, and social distancing) is almost impossible. The country sinks deeper into a compounding cycle of poverty and ill-health with the increasing number of COVID-19 cases. The healthcare system is woefully ill-prepared to manage a spike in critical cases. The country only has 6 ventilators. 

Deborah was part of a wonderful article in the San Diego Union Tribune about phenomenal San Diego women in advocacy and empowerment.
“If you empower a man, you empower one person,” Deborah Lindholm once told the Union-Tribune. “If you empower a woman, you empower her entire family.”
​That’s the formula behind microfinance — small loans to fledgling female entrepreneurs — that Lindholm and the nonprofit Foundation for Women have been using since 1997 to ease poverty in San Diego, India and now Liberia. She was drawn to the work after seeing how a $4 loan in India — used to buy a comb, a pair of scissors and a mirror and start a barber business — helped a woman buy a home and send her children to school. The program, started in Lindholm’s Coronado living room and patterned after the work of Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus, has helped more than 1 million women so far. Read the full article online: sandiegouniontribune.com.

We greatly appreciate your support of our COVID19 Food Campaign - and so many more are awaiting help from FFW. We have become known for this food security campaign. $25 feeds a family of 5 for two months. Please help us help more. Visit our website to help today!

Keep reading for an update and stories from our FFW Liberia Director, Magnus.