By Eliza Ridgeway
 Kavita Ramdas, president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, discussed the organization’s work during a recent visit to Los Altos Hills. |
Los Altos Hills residents Susan and Tom Harrington hosted a reception last month for the Global Funds for Women and Children, gathering donors, volunteers and those new to the non-profits. Terri Unger co-hosted the event, a full house that brought together 70 supporters of both groups for wine, snacks and education.
Maya Ajmera, who works with the Global Children’s Fund, told compelling stories of a young Muslim man who founded a floating school for impoverished girls living along the waterways of Bangladesh and a group of teachers who convened an elementary school for transient children on India’s railway platforms. Ajmera, founder of the fund, joined Kavita Ramdas, president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, to describe their work.
The two independent organizations have collaborated recently, and the two leaders shared stories and wisdom, both political and business-oriented, gleaned from working in grant-making.
“Aid has been focused on institution building, and women are not seen as an important part of development,” Ramdas said. “We’re not a special-interest group, not a minority - we’re the glue that binds civilizations together.”
Ramdas described the Global Fund for Women as a venture capital fund for the world’s women. The fund, historically supported by individual donors, has gradually increased its corporate support, but, she said, “They were quite scared about women for a while. But this is a way to reinvest in the lives of their workers overseas.”
“The investment gets right to the people, to the social entrepreneurs,” Ajmera added.
Ajmera was working toward a medical degree when she saw children at school on a train platform in India. A $500 donation can fund two teachers for such a school for a year, she said. She decided to start a fund for children not being reached by formal institutions. At age 24, she met with four venture capitalists who “ate me alive for an hour,” she said, but then gave her $100,000 in seed capital.
Ajmera and Ramdas acknowledged how blurry the lines are between being classified a “girl” or a “woman” in other parts of the world. In some countries, girls can be married at age 9 or sold as slaves or to work in brothels. By age 5, girls are routinely caring for baby siblings and hauling water and firewood, Ajmera said.
After describing their programs, the two leaders answered questions from the guests in attendance about the programs and their institutional structures.
“Gender equality is probably the biggest issue on the planet, but it hasn’t been recognized yet,” Los Altos Hills resident Jonathan Glick said. “In much of the world, the worst thing that can happen to you is to be born a woman.”
Glick, a longtime supporter of the Global Fund for Women, said that because of micro loans, a tiny amount of money can go a long way. “All of a sudden, a woman is self-sufficient,” he said.
The San Francisco-based Global Fund for Women, founded in 1987, advocates for and defends women’s rights by making small grants to women’s groups around the world, ranging from $500 to $20,000. It made over $7.3 million in grants last year. The Global Fund for Children, which supports community organizations that serve vulnerable children, made its first grants, totaling $3,000, in 1997. It has since grown to boast an annual budget of nearly $2 million.
For more information about the programs, visit www.globalfundforwomen.org and www.globalfundforchildren.org.
