This holiday season, forget giving yet another expected Christmas present and make this year’s gift giving matter!
2016 has been full of ups and downs (#PresidentTrump) and it feels more important than ever to give back. So, you could go ahead with gifting the kiddos another dancing Snowman that sings “Ice Ice Baby”…or turn one gift into two by considering one of these ideas below where your purchase ultimately goes toward the work of women’s economic empowerment.
Heifer International, CARE International, Ten Thousand Villages, Solar Sister, Fair Trade Winds, and Global Goods Partners are just a few of many organizations aimed at encouraging shoppers to stretch this year’s holiday spending to also support women’s empowerment through beautiful, handmade crafts, donations to support women’s entrepreneurship and trainings, and more. But when in doubt, a donation to Planned Parenthood or the ACLU in your recipient’s name will support women’s rights, access to health services, and basic civil liberties at a time when women still endure ongoing struggles of gender bias.
Check out all the details below and let us know in the comments how you are supporting women’s empowerment through this year’s holiday gift giving.
Heifer International aims to provide support to women and girls through women’s groups, gender equality training, and providing girls with the means to go to school. Your gift helps to make their hard work a reality.
Heifer International’s programs are designed to give every girl a chance for success and we are proud to recommend the gift ideas below. View the entire Heifer International Women’s Empowerment Donation Catalog for even more ways you can support their efforts.
Launch a Small Business - $365
The Launch a Small Business donation would give women training on how to save money wisely and manage their own business. In addition, it would provide the much needed startup capital to start their journey.
Enterpriser Gift Basket - $390
Purchasing this basket of rabbits, silk worms, and fish fingerlings, provides a women with what she needs to start her small business. She receives training in business management and animal care, as well as the startup capital needed to start.
This is more than a gift basket! It’s just one way to empower a woman to become the breadwinner for her family and contribute to growing her local economy.
Women Self Help Group - $72
The Women Self Help Group donation provides training sessions on business, lessons on how to read and write, access to livestock and additional training, and more. By bringing these women together to learn from each other, it provides the encouragement and knowledge to create a better life for them and their families.
Send a Girl to School - $275
When you send a girl to school through this donation, you provide a family with training and livestock so they can earn the income needed to pay for their daughter’s education. It empowers young women and pays for their school tuition, supplies, and more.
Like Heifer, CARE does some amazing work towards women’s empowerment. Their Gifts of Lasting Change page features some unique ways to spend your donation in not only women’s empowerment, but also education, farming, animals, basic needs, and more.
Scholarship for a Girl to Attend Secondary School - $143.00
The benefits to girls who stay in school and continue their education are vast — they are healthier, earn more money, start families later, and more. As one of their Gifts of Lasting Change, this donation gifts an education to one girl.
Child Marriage Prevention and Services - $100.00
With the Child Marriage Prevention and Services gift, CARE works to combat child marriage and offers support to women and girls affected by the devastating result of child marriage. Your gifts provides training in reproductive health, financial literacy, and more for child brides to set them up for success.
Sewing Machine and Training - $150.00
CARE provides training, business skills development and equipment like sewing machines to help women start their own tailoring business.
Girls Mentorship Club - $81.00
With this gift, you provide girls mentorship clubs with startup materials and equipment. Through activities like gardening, sports, sewing, or drama, mentorship clubs build leadership and interpersonal skills among girls with a common interest.
Leadership Training for 1 Girl - $26.00
By gifting Leadership Training for 1 Girl, CARE provides training to girls to build their assertiveness and to serve as leaders in their villages and schools.
3 Feminine Hygiene Kits for Teen Girls - $30.00
CARE provides feminine hygiene kits to help girls stay in school. These kits include soap, toilet paper, sanitary pads, and towels, all to maintain their health and preserve their dignity.
School Uniforms for 2 Girls - $38.00
Schooling costs a lot for these girls and their families. Even in places where public education is at no cost, students often must buy uniforms in order to attend. With this gift, you keep girls in the classroom by providing two of them with school uniforms.
One of many gift ideas from the Highland Women’s Multipurpose Co-op on the Ten Thousand Villages website. Handmade in the Philippines, the items seen here range from $18.99 to $34.99.
Just one of the many women craft makers on the Ten Thousand Villages online store is the Highland Women’s Multipurpose Co-op from the Philippines. This Co-op helps women artisans work together in groups, obtain government help in skills training, buy raw materials, gain access to low interest loans and obtain titles to their land and Ten Thousand Villages has been purchasing their products since 1987.
Made out of recycled newspaper and other materials, all gifts are handmade in the Philippines and are a great, inexpensive gift that directly supports women growing their own economies. There are 15 items available online – prices range from only $6.00 (!) to $34.99.
For other great gift ideas that support local producers, check out the entire holiday gift guide.
Solar Sister is a great organization made up of women bringing affordable clean energy directly to their communities. They provide each entrepreneur with the mentoring, training, and business support they need to successfully build their businesses and reach more people. But to make all their hard work possible, they need donations! Every $500 kickstarts a new Solar Sister entrepreneur with a year of training, mentoring, and support. Your gift, of any amount, will help us empower the next Solar Sister.
It’s a simple fact: buying fair trade empowers women. The Fair Trade Winds website features affordable gifts made by talented women and buying one of these as your stocking stuffers gives women all over the word the opportunity to bring success to their local communities.
Fair Trade Winds is featuring embroidered items from women in Peru, jewelry made by women escaping human trafficking in East Asia, handmade jewelry & ornaments from women’s cooperatives in India and Nepal, and much more.
Need even more gift ideas? Our friends at Global Goods Partners have a fantastic list of Holiday Gifts That Give Back perfect for anyone on your list.
100 Under $100 explains, in easily understood prose, the challenges faced by the world’s billion+ most impoverished women. These women work incredibly hard, held back by a dearth of resources and education, little access to health care, and discriminatory legal and financial services. With better tools and expanded access, women’s hard work will be more productive, yielding better outcomes for them, their families and their communities. The highlighted tools will provide women a toe-hold to climb the ladder out of extreme poverty.
Bonus: For each paperback copy sold, Betsy will be donating one dose of Misoprostol to Life for African Mothers. Learn more here.
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