Without Women

Without women, it would be impossible to unmake violence and remake our world.

Women are the glue. They’re often the ones responsible for picking up the pieces and putting their lives and families back together when the dust of airstrikes, mortar attacks, and chemical warfare finally settles.

Women are often denied the power and influence they need to stop the conflict from starting, they rarely contribute to the conflict directly, and they’re often victims of horrific violence during conflict. Yet it falls to them to heal their country, their culture, and their families in the wake of a war they did not make.

It’s unfair. But the women of Iraq and Syria are rising to the challenge.

I don’t know where they find their never-ending tenacity. Despite the weight of the violence, death, and trauma that so many of them have experienced, still they rise.

And when a woman rises, she lifts up everyone around her. It’s been proven time and time again in development studies—when you empower a woman, she empowers her family and her community.

In fact, women’s empowerment is one of the best benchmarks for how a country is generally doing. If the women are doing well, the country is doing well. The women make sure of it.

Imagine for a second if we didn’t have women in the Middle East…

What if Iraq and Syria didn’t have women to start the healing process? What if no one was there to help communities and families come back together after conflict tore them apart?

Without the glue, you’ve just got a bunch of broken pieces and no way to make them whole again.

Now imagine what our work would look like without women…

Did you know that women are the primary donors to charitable causes? Our work is no exception to that rule. Women are the majority of our followers on social media and the majority of our donors.

Without women, we could not do the work that we do. Most of the families we feed would not get fed. Most of the businesses we help start would not get started. Because you make those things possible. And the majority of “you” are women.

And it’s not just our supporters, either. Women actually make up the majority of Preemptive Love Coalition as a whole—as donors, partners, empowerment grant recipients, and staff.

Without women there would be far less good work being done, both “here” and “there.” Less progress being made. Less good news to report. Without women, there would be less hope.

Women have a strength, a tenacity, and a drive to remake their world on behalf of themselves and those around them. Women have what it takes to unmake violence. Without them, it simply wouldn’t happen.

But with all of us, working together as one unbreakable global sisterhood, there are no limits to what we can remake and rebuild.

Empower your sisters to rebuild their lives, families, and communities.