Access Power Foundation is committed to empowering women to lead their communities and nations forward. We are located in Toronto, Canada, and support areas of the world we believe can benefit most.
Grass Roots Microdevelopment
Change must come from within. We believe those who reside within a region know what steps to take to achieve solutions. What they need are the tools and resources to do so.
Gender
In many parts of the world there is a need for women to be empowered to step forward out of victimhood and into a role of power and responsibility. Access Power Foundation is a women’s “response-ability” organization. We aim to give people tools and resources to support their own efforts.
Evidence shows that where women are educated and active in their communities, the socioeconomic status of all is raised. Men, as active partners in this effort, experience the benefits for themselves, their families and communities.
“You don’t have to be anti-man to be pro-woman.” Jane Galvin Lewis
“There’s a growing recognition among everyone…that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. That’s why foreign aid is increasingly directed to women. The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution. ….WHY DO MICROFINANCE organizations usually focus their assistance on women? And why does everyone benefit when women enter the work force and bring home regular pay checks? ….A series of studies has found that when women hold assets or gain incomes, family money is more likely to be spent on nutrition, medicine and housing, and consequently children are healthier. …the economist Esther Duflo of M.I.T. found that when the men’s crops flourish, the household spends more money on alcohol and tobacco. When the women have a good crop, the households spend more money on food. “When women command greater power, child health and nutrition improves,” Duflo says. …Such research has concrete implications: for example, donor countries should nudge poor countries to adjust their laws so that when a man dies, his property is passed on to his widow rather than to his brothers. Governments should make it easy for women to hold property and bank accounts — 1 percent of the world’s landowners are women — and they should make it much easier for microfinance institutions to start banks so that women can save money. …crucially, aid has often been most effective when aimed at women and girls; when policy wonks do the math, they often find that these investments have a net economic return. Only a small proportion of aid specifically targets women or girls, but increasingly donors are recognizing that that is where they often get the most bang for the buck. …“Investment in girls’ education may well be the highest-return investment available in the developing world,” Larry Summers wrote when he was chief economist of the World Bank. Private aid groups and foundations shifted gears as well. “Women are the key to ending hunger in Africa,” declared the Hunger Project. The Center for Global Development issued a major report explaining “why and how to put girls at the center of development.” CARE took women and girls as the centerpiece of its anti-poverty efforts. “Gender inequality hurts economic growth,” Goldman Sachs concluded in a 2008 research report that emphasized how much developing countries could improve their economic performance by educating girls. …Yet another reason to educate and empower women is that greater female involvement in society and the economy appears to undermine extremism and terrorism. It has long been known that a risk factor for turbulence and violence is the share of a country’s population made up of young people. Now it is emerging that male domination of society is also a risk factor…” Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, New York Times Magazine, Aug. 23, 2009
