MADRE

Health is not only the absence of disease or infirmity, but also a state of physical, mental and social well-being. The strongest determinants of health are the social, political and economic forces in our lives. How healthy we are depends enormously on our access to nutritious food, clean water and medical care, on the levels of violence and stress in our lives, on our working conditions and on the opportunities we have for love, pleasure and fulfillment. Health, then, is inextricably linked to human rights. In fact, social and economic inequality, both between men and women and among different groups of women, is the biggest obstacle to good health for women around the world.

MADRE recognizes the many different ways that war impacts women's human rights and gender relations. These programs work to enhance women's capacities to prevent, survive, resolve, and recover from situations of armed conflict. MADRE programs address the exploitation of child soldiers, the use of rape as a weapon of war and the impact of militarization and forced displacement on women and families. They offer trauma counseling for women and youth, protection from domestic and political violence and critical health care and education services for those who have been forced to flee their homes.

This year, the UN Meteorological Organization warned of record-breaking extreme weather on every continent. Around the world, wars are raging over natural resources. While a handful of the world's people continue to get richer, nearly 900 million, most of them women and girls, suffer from hunger and malnutrition - and that number is rising. Meanwhile, as many as 140,000 species are becoming extinct each year - more than at any other time in human history.  Clearly, the world has reached a tipping point in its ability to absorb the harmful impacts of unsustainable resource use, economic greed, and militarism. This planet-wide crisis is the defining issue of our time: never before have we faced a web of problems that threatens the survival of humanity and the life of the planet itself. But we are also on the verge of another tipping point, as hopeful as the threat is grave. More and more people are realizing that we cannot continue to live outside the laws of nature and that we have the capability to reinvent our economies and habitats on a sustainable basis and in ways that safeguard human rights. Around the world, strong public consciousness is spreading about the interrelationships between the problems that threaten our communities and the ecosystems on which we depend. Increasingly, people are focused on creating concrete, realizable solutions that are both local and systemic. MADRE's work with women and families around the world beats at the heart of this movement to reset the course of the world. In communities where we work - in Sudan, Iraq, Nicaragua, Palestine, Haiti, Guatemala, Kenya, Peru, Colombia and Panama - women experience this global crisis on a daily basis. They face wars, environmental destruction, poverty, and gender-based violence. Yet, they reject catastrophic end-of-the-world scenarios because they know that change is not only possible - it is already happening. It is the women themselves who are creating this change in partnership with MADRE.