By Michelle Nunn, CARE President & CEO
This has been such an extraordinary decade. When I began with CARE, it was impossible to imagine the conflicts, political changes, disasters, and a COVID pandemic that would befall the world. Often people ask me how, as the leader of CARE, I stay hopeful when there are so many challenges and so much human suffering. But, in fact, I have the privilege of seeing people facing the most difficult circumstances with resilience, courage, and goodness.
I get to see how leaders create change that ripples out across the world. I celebrated with the original group of women in Niger that started CARE’s savings group model more than 30 years ago. That group of 20 has grown to 22 million people in some 60 countries and together they now save and re-invest close to $1 billion a year. That’s not just a program. That’s an entire economy. One of my heroes is a VSLA leader in Cote d’Ivoire, Salimata. Recently, she reached out to let me know that she had recruited 48 women leaders who had trained and mobilized an additional 48,000 women into CARE savings groups. “We are just getting started,” she said. Caring, hope, and generosity are contagious!
There is potential everywhere
In Afghanistan, I traveled to a remote village and sat cross- legged on the floor of a one-room elementary school. The boys and girls answered our questions energetically. “What is your favorite subject? What do you want to be when you grow up?” we asked. One of my colleagues cheekily asked who was the smartest in the class. A young girl sitting in the back quietly stood up and came forward. She stood in front of us and said, without hesitation or hubris, “I am the smartest student in the class.” And all the students nodded in agreement!
Even in the most challenging circumstances, there is hope, there is human potential, and CARE is there.
