Washington, Apr 29 (IANS): US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has outlined several new initiatives to empower women around the world through technology training, public-private partnerships and grants and a planned entrepreneurship summit specifically for women.
Clinton announced the initiatives Wednesday at a breakfast for women from around the world, included two from India, who attended President Barack Obama's entrepreneurship conference summit.
Under the "Secretary's Innovation Award for Women's and Girls' Empowerment" up to $500,000 each will go to two applicants who can offer pioneering solutions to empower the world's women and girls, politically, economically and socially. The Rockefeller Foundation funds the awards.
Announcing the launch of a separate International Fund for Women and Girls, a public-private partnership that will provide high-impact grants to NGOs working to advance the economic, social, and political progress of women, she recalled the work of an Indian NGO.
"I will never forget being in Managua, Nicaragua and there was a little television set in the corner of this market, and I was talking to women who were part of a micro-credit organization.
"All they wanted to talk to me about was my visit to India, to the Self-Employed Women's Association, which they had seen on their TV in Nicaragua, and they wanted to know what that was like," Clinton said.
Clinton also told the story of a woman she once met at a craft market in Nepal. The woman had not been allowed to leave her home after her marriage, until her husband was injured and could no longer earn a living.
With the family in a dire situation, the woman had to ask her husband and mother-in-law for permission to sell the tapestries and crafts she could produce.
"As a result of her talent and her skill, she now employed two other weavers, and she now is sending her children to school, and they had added on to their home. And I said, 'So what do your husband and your mother-in-law think now?' She said, 'They think it's good.'"
Clinton said the United States is making women a focus of its foreign-policy agenda. The goal is to change attitudes about women, she said, and to address the challenges they face.