Rotary International honored six members as People of Action: Champions of Girls' Empowerment on 11 October, the International Day of the Girl Child. This distinction recognizes the honorees' commitment to improving girls' access to education, health, and sanitation and hygiene resources, as well as their work to create environments where girls can flourish. Empowering girls is one of RI President Shekhar Mehta's key initiatives, and he is encouraging clubs and districts to consider how they can accomplish this through all of their service projects this year.
The honorees will also be recognized at Rotary Day at UNICEF in March.
Momtaz Chowdhury
Rotary Club of Dhaka Mavericks, Bangladesh
Momtaz Chowdhury is vice president of the Institution for Shelter, Training, and Development of Underprivileged Girls in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which provides housing, food, and education for girls through secondary school. The organization offers vocational training and, when the girls graduate, job placement assistance. Chowdhury has also helped girls through the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee and her family's own educational philanthropy projects. Chowdhury believes that instilling leadership and entrepreneurial skills in girls benefits them as well as their communities, which is why she works with banks to provide flexible loans for female entrepreneurs. She also collaborates with banks to provide small business aid to women who have lost their jobs because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mildred Fragante
Rotary Club of Cubao Metro Aurora, Quezon City, Philippines
Mildred Fragante has worked tirelessly in her career to raise awareness of abuse of women and children. She was a producer for Women's Desk, a national TV program that collaborated with the Women and Children Protection Center on stories about domestic abuse. Fragante also founded Aurora, a resource and education program that works to empower girls, and Reconnect, a program that pairs journalists and authors with survivors of abuse so that the writers can better tell these stories. And her club used a Rotary Foundation global grant to renovate a community shelter for abused girls in 2018.
Elaine Ruiz
Rotary Club of Senador Guiomard, Acre, Brazil
Elaine Ruiz is the director of Sewing the Future, a project that offers professional training to young women in the criminal justice system. It trains girls to become seamstresses, artisans, and service workers, which helps them find work after they're released and reduces their chances of being convicted of crimes again. Ruiz serves as a liaison between the girls and the justice system and plays an integral part in establishing financial partnerships in the community.
Lydiah Njoroge
Rotary Club of Kiambu, Kenya
Lydiah Njoroge is the program manager for Freedom for Girls at HEART (Health Education Africa Resource Team), where she has directly affected the lives of almost 300,000 girls in Kenya and other parts of East Africa by providing hygiene products to keep them healthy and in school. Njoroge has conducted extensive research on how menstrual concerns affect girls' access to education. She has worked with Rotary clubs both in the U.S. and Kenya and with Procter & Gamble's Always Keeping Girls in School initiative as well as facilitates relationships with partners to create programs that provide girls with resources and helps them get an education. This program has reached girls in more than 500 schools and trained more than 10,000 teachers in mentoring female students.
Srinidhi S.U.
Rotaract Club of Bangalore Seshadripuram, Karnataka, India
Srinidhi S.U. has devoted his Rotaract work to the health needs of women and girls in his community. He served as the project chair for a menstrual hygiene management session in 2018 and later founded a local group of Project Sthree to address women's health concerns, including menstrual hygiene, thyroid and breast cancer, and HPV. The initiative also provides leadership and safety training. He has spoken and collaborated with Red Dot Talks, which encourages men to discuss menstrual issues. His work has given more than 5,000 girls a greater awareness of menstrual hygiene.
Motalib Weijters
Rotary Club of Uden, The Netherlands
Motalib Weijters, who was adopted by Dutch parents, knew very little about his biological family or about life in their home country of Bangladesh. In 1994, he reconnected with his birth family, and he saw the needs of people in their area. He worked on water and sanitation projects in Bangladesh and later founded a clinic for mothers and children. He also established a cervical and breast cancer treatment center that offers services to women and girls in need. These initiatives have helped more than 21,000 people. The clinics are financially sustained by support from nongovernmental organizations and Rotary grant projects carried out by clubs in the Netherlands and Bangladesh.