Stories

CARE works to empower women and girls around the world. Here are just a few of the women that you will be walking in solidarity with during Walk in Her Shoes.

Walk in Susan’s shoes

Picture a family of seven, living in a small thatch-roofed hut in drought-prone southern Zimbabwe. The only access they have to water is a river, which is 6 km away. This is the problem that 52-year old Susan Magura used to battle with each day. 

Her solution? Walking for over four hours while carting heavy water containers, every single day. Twice a day, Susan would carry three 20-litre containers in a wheel barrow, with her 22-year old daughter helping to lug a container by herself. After this long and difficult walk, the water was not even safe to drink. 

“It’s hard to comprehend, but there’s nothing you can do and there’s nothing to help your children when they are sick because you have no resources,” she says. “Many people in my community would get sick.”

Last year, CARE repaired a broken borehole near Susan’s home. She now has an abundance of safe, clean water that is 4 km from her home. She still spends over an hour and a half walking each trip, but the water is clean, safe and there is no shortage. It is a resource that the community is proud to own and maintain themselves. 

The borehole committee has played a part in improving another fundamental part of the community – gender equality. Of the seven members, four are women and the group is encouraged to include and promote the concerns of women in the broader community. 

For Susan, the committee is ensuring that she spends less time walking, and less time worrying about her children being sick. “I hope that my children can grow up in good health so that they can perform well in school and appreciate the work that CARE has done for their community.”

Empowering girls through education

In late 2011, the Walk In Her Shoes team thought it would be interesting to compare the day-to-day lives and aspirations of girls in Canada with those of a group of girls who benefit from CARE projects. We spoke with girls from Vancouver, Ottawa, and Kenya. What we found is that girls around the world are not so different after all.

Meet Hamné

Hamné Moussa Souleymane is a 17–year-old Sudanese refugee living in CARE’s Touloum refugee camp in Chad. Her day begins at 5am every morning and ends at 10pm. She walks an average of 9,000 steps each day. Hamné is responsible for collecting water and other basic necessities while helping her family with the cattle. With the assistance of CARE, Hamné is also continuing her education. After finishing her chores, she attends school and hopes to continue on to higher education. One day, she would like to be a doctor and help care for the women and children in her community.

The Touloum refugee camp in eastern Chad is a CARE and UNHCR funded initiative that serves thousands of Sudanese refugees and provides a variety of services including:

• education and educational supplies for primary- and secondary-aged children
• food distribution to 65,000 refugees
• sexual- and gender-based violence counseling for women
• microfinance programs

By participating in Walk In Her Shoes, you are directly supporting the empowerment of young women like Hamné.

Meet Yusina

Yusina is 35 years old and has four children. Each day, Yusina walks over 10,000 steps to collect water for her family. Before CARE implemented the Linking and Learning project in her village, Yusina had to line up for hours at a time just to get water. CARE, through the Linking and Learning initiative, has since built two water reservoirs that have significantly reduced waiting times for the women of Yusina’s village. While she still has to walk a great distance to access water, CARE has helped empower Yusina and the other women of her community by making it easier and faster to collect water, leaving more time to care for her children and earn money.

CARE’s Linking and Learning project aims to reduce the impact of drought and lack of water availability caused by climate change. The project focuses on three main areas:

• providing  safe water facilities for households
• reducing the impact of flooding and drought by supporting collaboration between and among communities and local institutions
• increasing preparedness for natural disasters

By doing Walk In Her Shoes, you are directly supporting the empowerment of women like Yusina.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH