To add a new question, register to post or email wfc@womenfounders.org.

We expect to include a list of resources for women founders, depending upon what WFC receives from visitors to this website.  RESOURCES may include:

Funding opportunities
Links to other websites
Learning opportunities
Announcements for award competitions
and more…….we invite suggestions of resources from you!

Add your suggestions.

WFC welcomes posting of events to share with other women founders around the world…a creative way to learn what we’re each doing…how we’re doing it and where it’s all happening.

Please complete this form to list your NGO’s upcoming event(s) to appear on WFC’s Founder Events.

Note that, as a 501(c)(3), WFC cannot post or endorse any political candidate’s campaign.

The workshops focused on the importance of networking among women founders, within their own countries and beyond.  The following comments from emails WFC received following the workshops reflect the workshop participants’ positive feelings:

From Felicia Onibon:  “…..discussion was interesting and I realize such space creates opportunity to think through issues in ways you least expect could bring solution, insight and new inroads to solving salient problems that we may all be experiencing.”

From Stella Brown:  “….thank you for all your efforts.”

From Bijaya Rai Shrestha:  “Thank you for giving us the opportunity to be part of the WFC Workshop.  I will definitely register on the WFC (website)….I thank all for sharing and for your support.  Yes, let’s be in contact with each other through the website.”

As the majority of the women attending the workshops were from Nigeria, Rose Oby Nwosu (shown in photo), also from Nigeria and one of the workshop facilitators, volunteered to organize a group for women founders in Nigeria.  Here are more email responses:

From Ifie Enemo:  “I pray the group grows to accomplish that for which it was brought into being.”

From Biola Adimula (also a participant at WFC’s workshop in 2009):  “I think it is a great idea to start the group in Nigeria!”

WFC welcomes this initiative from Nigerian women founders.   Stay tuned to this website to learn of their progress.

Rose Oby Nwosu

WFC at CSW 2010

AN INVITATION TO ALL WOMEN FOUNDERS

OF NGO’s and WOMEN FOUNDERS-TO-BE

You are invited to participate with other women founders in a one-hour session to meet other women founders; address common issues; join WFC’s global support network; brainstorm how your work might benefit from this connection.

When: Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Where: Beekman Tower Hotel, 49^th and 1^st Ave. at 3 Mitchell Place, Lobby Level

Time: Three separate one-hour sessions at: 2 PM, 3 PM and 4 PM.

(If one session fills, come to the following session.)

Any questions, contact: wfc@womenfounders.org

Once again, WFC will join women from around the world at the UN sessions of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) this March 1-12, 2010 in New York City.

And, as before, WFC will offer a Side Event during the first week.  The topic under consideration is “facilitation”, the importance of this critical skill for women founders and how to master it.

For those of you traveling to New York City to attend CSW 54, let us know so we can personally invite you (and your colleagues) to attend our Side Event and put aside time to meet with you as well.

And for those of you coming to New York City who were participants in any of the past WFC Side Events, please contact us if you are interested in joining the WFC Side Event Support Staff.  We welcome your suggestions, input and assistance.

We look forward to greet our WFC friends once again at CSW 54!

Online Resource Centre (ORC) is a collaborative effort to address the problems faced by NGOs and development organisations in accessing information that is already available. ORC is a web based information network that provides a one stop shop for development information and NGO products and services.

http://nposonline.net/funding.shtml

Meet Gozie Udemezue from Enugu, Nigeria

In 2006, I founded The Leadership Club for Girls, (TLCG) in Nigeria with the sole aim of reaching out to young girls in rural communities of the eastern States of Nigeria. I did this to provide leadership skills, personal development skills, mentoring, internship opportunities, scholarship grants, computer skills and health and hygiene programs for rural-based girls who most often are shy and very timid and do not have access to such programs. I experienced this as I lived in a rural community between ages 8 and 21.

Starting this group was a very big challenge as I had no initial money to register the organization.  I also faced the challenge of funding the programs.  I could have easily given up but for the positive results from the girls I first worked with at the Ogidi Girls Secondary School.  At the point I started the project at the Ogidi School, the morale of the girls was low. The first time I had a meeting with them, I told them I was a former student of the school.  They could not believe me.  How could a student from Ogidi Girls achieve anything in life?  These girls, before our meetings, had almost no ambition; teenage pregnancy and early marriage were very common as attested by the school principal.

Their attitude at the conclusion of our talks as shown through a meeting evaluation questionnaire, showed they now were determined to succeed.

Getting to the meetings presented me with great financial cost.  Driving to the village took four hours round trip, requiring great cost to fuel my car.  I was not earning a salary as I had just then resigned from a job.  So it was difficult to run the Girls’ program and also provide support to other groups I was working with.  But I refused to give up on the project and on the girls. Through lectures, I organized trainings for them on self-confidence, self-esteem, career choice and assertive skills.  And to boost their morale, I organized a party for them to commemorate the day of the African Child.  This party was an eye opener for the school management. The girls they had given up on presented an excellent drama on HIV/AIDS along with cultural dances, songs and other performances. This event was like the kick the girls needed to wake up.

Some of the girls continue to contact me to update me on their successes and plans.  They are still inspired by the trainings.

In time, I plan to hand over this NGO to a young woman while I play an advisory role. I am currently mentoring four young women, among whom one (the leader of the pack) will take over primary responsibility for The Leadership Club for Girls in Nigeria.

At WFC’s request, Gozie provided the following information about her
second NGO:
I founded the Healing Hearts Widows Foundation in 2008 to reach out to widows. In my area, widows are most often disinherited when they lose their husbands and are often accused of being responsible for the deaths of their spouses. In the course of my work with girls in rural areas, I found out that daughters of widows face greater difficulties and challenges as they often face the burden of supporting their mothers financially.  In some cases, they engage in transactional sex to make money, some drop out of school and some marry older men early. On an informal basis, I found myself supporting the poor mothers of some of these girls so they could reduce the burden on their daughters and the risks as well.

I founded the Healing Hearts Widows Foundation as a platform to touch the lives of widows positively. We provide free medical aid, free legal aid and spiritual counseling.  I have volunteer medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lab scientists, lawyers, magistrates and priests.  Every 3rd Saturday in July, we organize free medical aid in the city, and on the 10th December, to celebrate International Human Rights Day, we visit a remote community with a medical team and other volunteers.  We also visit any Church that invites us to support their widows and also hold an outreach there. This is the second anniversary for the Healing Hearts Widows Foundation;  we have provided free medical aid for about 1000 widows. We receive free drugs from two big drug companies in Lagos, Nigeria and some medications here in the city where I live (Enugu, Nigeria).  We receive clothing, food items and other gifts from kind people and these gifts we give to widows.

December 10th, 2009, 11am

St. Peter’s Catholic Church
Uda Enugu Ezike, Enugu State, Nigeria

For registration call:  08033285060

Organizer: Chigozie Udemezue
www.healingheartswidowsfoundation.org
healingheartsf@aol.com

Event description: Free medical outreach for about 344 widows in the community. Partnering with the Catholic Church and a private pharmacist.