Women Helping Women (or Kvinner Hjelper Kvinner) is a Voss Foundation campaign that has brought together more than 300 women in 7 countries to raise over $125,000 for clean water projects.
In the summer of 2009, the Voss Foundation invited Norwegian women to support its second water project in the Samburu region of Kenya. The Foundation sought women whose conscience motivates them to help women around the world in their struggle for a better life. By donating NOK 2000, these Norwegian ladies would join a network of women who together could make a difference for an entire village. Their contribution would help women and girls in the village of Swari achieve improved health and hygiene for themselves and their families. Once they had access to clean water at a school, clinic, and kiosk near their homes, Swari women would be able to pursue their own social and financial projects to participate in their communities as empowered citizens.
In gratitude, and to commemorate the contribution, jewelry designer Camilla Prytz generously offered to donate a hand-made necklace to each Norwegian participant.
The Voss Foundation had no idea how many women would join at first, but the responses began to pour in immediately. In fact, the program was oversubscribed in a matter of months! The first woman to join was Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland -- United Nations Special Envoy, former Norwegian Prime Minister, and former Director General of the World Health Organization. So many women answered the call that the Foundation raised more than enough money for the first Swari project. Ultimately, over 200 women joined from all over the world.
In January 2010, some of the original WHW supporters visited Kenya to attend the opening ceremony of the Swari project and assess the work for themselves. Please click here to see more pictures from the trip.
Since Women Helping Women has proven to be so wildly popular and effective, the Voss Foundation is scaling it up to other cities around the world, so that the concept of women joining together to help other women can be truly global.
Women Helping Women II was launched in Europe in Summer 2010, and in November, the first ever Women Helping Women luncheon was held in New York City. The 2010 campaigns raised enough money for two water projects: One in Ndonyo Nasipa, also in the Samburu district of Northern Kenya with partner Milgis Trust; the other at the Georges Malaika School for Girls in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Photographs of the 2010 Oslo Women’s Night can be found here.
Photographs of the 2010 New York Women Helping Women Luncheon can be found here.
Participating women are able to keep track of their projects and WHW news on the Voss Foundation’s blog, Facebook page, or Twitter updates. These sources are regularly updated with project reports, so that donors can stay connected to the African women and girls whom they have helped as well as kept abreast of the work of other women internationally who are collaborating in the effort.
Please contact info@thevossfoundation.org or info.europe@thevossfoundation.org for more information about how to get involved or start a Women Helping Women program in your own city.
