This article was originally published by Women’s Economic Imperative (WEI), a W4 partner, & is republished here courtesy of WEI. Find out more about the work of WEI.     Gender inequality is one of the main obstacles to sustainable development. Women’s exclusion from the heart of public policy-making is not new, and the response to the COVID-19 crisis is no exception, as the crisis’ gendered impact fails to be addressed. While available data reveal that men are more prone to die as a result of the coronavirus,[1] there are many dimensions on which women are ..read more

  Meet W4 team member Sterenn!      How long have you worked with W4, and in what position?   I’ve been working with W4 for almost a year now, and I’ve almost finished my mission as assistant field program manager in Kenya, where I have been working in Kajiado. I’m currently at our office in Paris, but I’ll soon be heading back to Africa to oversee our field programs in Kenya, Tanzania and the wider Sub-Saharan Africa region.       Why did you decide to join W4?   After completing my master’s degree in African Studies, I seized the opportunity to t ..read more

  Astha Sharma, the young & brilliant Co-Founder of Code Rush in Nepal, speaks with W4 about her drive to promote girls’ and women’s participation in the technology sector in Nepal.    Please tell us about yourself and what inspired you to work with Girls in Technology.   I’m an electronics and communications engineer living in Kathmandu, Nepal. For the past months, I’ve been a Blockchain researcher, running a blog site, “BlockStuffs”, where I share knowledge on Blockchain technology, plus exciting news and stories from all across the world. I first joined Girls in Tec ..read more

  Meet W4 team member Wei Li!    How long have you worked with W4, and in what position?   My name is Wei Li Werner and I’ve been an intern at W4 for a little over a month. Currently, I’m assisting with communications and editorial work and providing support for field programs.   Why did you decide to join W4?   I believe in W4’s mission and the organization’s approach to women’s empowerment. Many NGOs work to promote women’s empowerment, but W4 stands out for me because their approach to achieving this goal is so collaborative and sustainable. It’s great to work ..read more

    #InHerOwnWords     Can you tell us about yourself, your family and where you come from?   My name is Urooj and I am 27 years old. I am married and I have a 6-year-old son.   I got married when I was only 19. In our country and societies, most girls get married at a young age and, because of marriage, our studies and careers are often disrupted. We have to prioritize our families’ needs and wishes. Will our family allow us to study or not? We have to think in terms of what everyone else needs and wants; that is the mindset. When I got married, I couldn’t contin ..read more

  WEC-Congo was selected as a winner, in 2018, of a joint W4-Girls Not Brides call for innovative, high-impact projects to end child marriage in local communities in Sub-Saharan Africa.   W4 sat down with the WEC-Congo team to discuss their work with local communities in the North and South Kivu region in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and how their programs to end child marriage are bringing about positive, lasting change.       What inspired you to found WEC-Congo?   Inequality between men and women in DRC, the ongoing ravages of war and conflict (which ..read more

  W4 is proud to support the wonderful, vital programs of the grassroots organization Birthing Project USA. Founded by Kathryn Hall-Trujillo, Birthing Project has been working for decades to reduce maternal and infant mortality in the US and abroad. Our editorial team sat down for a talk with the team’s International Medical Director, Dr. Sarpoma Sefa-Boakye, about Birthing Project’s  passionate mission to save women’s and babies’ lives.    Maternal mortality remains a critical problem in the US, and it has worsened since the 1990s. As a physician, could you give us some in ..read more

  Rachael Tengbom, Founder of Voices of Hope, speaks with W4’s editorial team about her visionary work to provide Maasai girls and women with life-changing educational opportunities.    Please tell us about your experience working with Voices of Hope.   Rachael Tengbom (in foreground) Voices of Hope (VoH) helps students to go to school and pays their tuition fees, but running an IT training program on a daily basis was new for me. My confidence was boosted by Stanley, the director of field operations, because I’ve been working with him at VoH for a long time and he ..read more

  W4 interviews inspirational Shamim Rajani, a “women in tech” role model on a mission to foster a new generation of tech-trailblazing young women through her work with CodeGirls Pakistan!      What inspired the creation of CodeGirls Pakistan?   For the last 14 years, I’ve owned a software services company in Pakistan. I have a team of 60 people working on web, mobile and AI-enabled applications. One of my customers, with whom I had worked for the last 10 years, came across a few interviews I’d done and learned a little about me and how I had been married at the age o ..read more

    W4’s field partner Project Soar, based in Morocco, is launching a new online YouTube channel, “Soar TV” to inspire and empower girls in the MENA region. The show, delivered in both Darija and Modern Standard Arabic, by animated “talk show”-style hosts, will share news and interviews highlighting the accomplishments of prominent women from the MENA region. The show aims to offer girls and women positive, uplifting role models and depictions of women. The W4 editorial team interviewed Project Soar’s Program Development Manager Heyab-Mariam Ogbasion about this ambitio ..read more