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12/07/11 | Uncategorized

Paying It Forward: A Global Sisterhood Of Women

By Siiri Morley (Founding Partner, Prosperity Candle)

 

Does anyone else feel a movement of powerful women sweeping the world?As I prepare to exhibit at the Massachusetts Conference for Women (very excited about going on 12/8!) I reflect on the incredible diversity of the women’s groups that I have connected with recently.

Over the past few months I’ve collaborated/spoken with 85 Broads, Women’s Education Project, World Pulse, the Women’s Bar Association, Women 2.0, Equality Now, the Women’s Entrepreneurship Council, Simmons College, joinFITE, Golden Seeds, Church Women United, the Babson Center for Women’s Leadership, the South Shore Women’s Business Network, Women in the World Foundation, Pipeline Fellowship, Women’s World Banking, amongst many other women-focused organizations. Each group is so different, yet there is a common thread throughout all of them: sisterhood.

This concept of sisterhood is stronger than I first realized. I have found that as a young woman entrepreneur — with a business that creates gifts for women created by women who are rebuilding their lives — I have been welcomed into the fold. Women from all walks of life have warmly opened their arms to me and supported my work. They have arranged speaking events for Prosperity Candle, have purchased gifts from Prosperity Candle and have made incredible introductions for us.

We all know that the work we do overseas and with refugee women in the United States is changing women’s lives, in so many ways. We have seen that women invest their time, energy and resources in others and give back to their community. So I’m writing now to honor the fact that women in the U.S., no matter what their profession, political belief or amount of education, do the same. Women invest not only in their own communities, but in other women all around the world. The sense of sisterhood has no borders.

As the President of the South Shore Women’s Business Network, Janet LaBerge, said at their Gala celebrating 20 years, “Women network differently. We do business differently. We’re all about paying it forward.”

Thank you to all the women in the world who pay it forward every day. You make our work possible.

Photo credit: Heber Vega for Prosperity Candle.

Prosperity Candle offers organizations looking to make a statement with their next donor, client, employee or board member gift an attractive range of gift options that are aligned with their values. What better way to illustrate your commitment to women’s entrepreneurship, professional development and empowerment than by giving a gift that helps a woman build her own enterprise in a place like Iraq, Burma or Haiti? To learn more about the purposeful business gift program and all of our customization options, contact Siiri at siiri@prosperitycandle.com.

This post was originally posted at Prosperity Candle’s blog.

About the guest blogger: Siiri Morley is a Founding Partner of Prosperity Candle, a social enterprise that aims to empower women entrepreneurs in regions of conflict. She has worked on poverty reduction and sustainable economic development projects in Afghanistan, Croatia, Ecuador and Kenya, and was a business capacity development advisor with the U.S. Peace Corps in Lesotho. She has consulted on social impact measurement to design firm IDEO. Siiri holds an MBA from the Heller School of Social Policy & Management at Brandeis University. Follow her on Twitter at @siirimorley.

Anne-Gail Moreland

Anne-Gail Moreland

Anne-Gail Moreland, an intern with Women 2.0, was on the StartupBus. She studies neuroscience at Mount Holyoke College, where she is trying to merge a passion for tech and the brain into a new wave of cognition-based technology

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