Who cares about leveling the playing field for women and girls?

When conflict destroyed the clinics in Tigray, Ethiopia, maternal mortality skyrocketed to five times its pre-war level. Kahsa refused to let her neighbors face childbirth in danger, especially after a village woman bled to death during a home delivery.

“There are no ambulances and we do not have the money for private transportation,” Kahsa explains. “So, what should we do? I am trying to support women in my community and encourage them to stand up for their rights. We finally have a voice.”

To answer that question, she gathered two wooden sticks and an old fertilizer sack to fashion a makeshift stretcher. Her community now uses it to carry “precious cargo” — mothers in labor — across difficult terrain to reach medical care. Kahsa leads the fight so no mother is left behind on a broken field. Read more

Walaa: The lifeline that guided a teammate through the fire in Sudan

As bullets tore through her home in Khartoum, Sudan, Walaa became the “eyes and ears” for her teammate, Takunda, who was trapped by armed groups. Over voice and text, she navigated him through a harrowing 500-meter dash across a conflict zone to safety.

“There was no room for anything else. Just people’s lives,” Walaa recalls of the moment she and 35 relatives fled in a small truck. “The only thing I brought was my CARE laptop. Not my personal one — I needed to keep working.”

Today, Walaa hikes to a mountain peak in the scorching heat — the only place with a cell signal—to coordinate deliveries of medicine and water. She’s the invisible engine, working tirelessly so others don’t lose everything. Read more

Zinaida: The ‘VIP Gypsy’ shattering stereotypes on TikTok in Ukraine

Zinaida spent her youth fighting the weight of Roma stereotypes and a society that tried to limit her potential. She chose to fight back with a journalism degree and a smartphone.

“Education allowed me to discover and express myself,” Zinaida says. “I decided to use a social media platform to reach people… to tell the world that the Roma community is as honest and decent as any other.”

Under the handle “VIP Gypsy,” Zinaida uses TikTok to invite 66,000 followers into the reality of Roma culture, replacing deep-rooted bias with respect. By sharing her truth, she ensures the next generation of Roma girls can walk on a field that is finally becoming level. Read more

Who cares?

The answer is simple.

Kahsa, Walaa, and Zinaida do. They show us that while the field is uneven, the will to change it is unstoppable. But these women shouldn’t have to carry the weight alone.

When the world asks, “Who cares about leveling the playing field?”

We know the answer: you do.

And at CARE, we do, too.