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President's Column: Lessons Learned on the Road
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Atewini stepped to the microphone and began by telling me in a halting voice that she was embarrassed that she didn’t speak English and had never been able to get an education. It didn’t matter. Her words spoke directly from her heart to mine—and the lesson I learned from her reflected a wisdom no school could teach.
The location was a community in northern Ghana, where I was visiting Episcopal Relief & Development and NetsforLife® programs in the region. In each village, the elders and women gathered to tell us their stories.
Atewini, who lives in northern Ghana, told me how a women’s empowerment program we are running with the Anglican Diocesan Development and Relief Organization transformed her life. The program allowed her to take out a small loan, less than $100, she used to set up a business to parboil rice and sell it to her neighbors. The profit enabled her to buy farm animals, multiplying her profits.
Before long, her proceeds were giving her children the opportunity she never had—to attend school. Atewini told me with pride that her eldest child is now attending university, and the other is in secondary school.
The lesson in Atewini’s words was about far more than loans or livestock. It was about hope. It was about how such wonderful things can be done with so little.
Her story says a great deal about our approach. As you’ll learn in this edition of ERD Now, we’re working around the world to empower women through programs like Atewini’s as well as others, such as building clean water and sewage systems that free women from the backbreaking and unhealthy job of hauling water and waste and enable them to pursue their dreams instead.
Rather than merely providing food or supplies, we’re unleashing people’s potential in their own communities. That’s certainly been the result in New Orleans. The vibrant Jericho Road Episcopal Housing Initiative, which we helped found with the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana, is bringing hope and opportunity to the Central City Neighborhood. And it’s what we’re doing in other communities around the world: empowering people, and unleashing hope.
Our faith calls us not merely to pray with our words but with our deeds. And Episcopal Relief & Development’s work around the world is a prayer that can speak to every heart. Thank you so much for supporting it.
Robert W. Radtke
President
