Each word of the title has power within its own self. I think you will see that illuminated today during a conversation that Karen Sherman will have with barbara. I am the managing director of the Aspen Institute and it is my pleasure to step in for my boss, and mosley, who is executive director and Vice President at the Aspen Institute. Unfortunately she had a family emergency and is not able to make it but she was heavily involved in the planning. It was her honor to host this booktalk because she has known Karen Sherman as a close friend for many many years. If you know her you know her personal and professional relationships and commitments are important to her. Only an emergency would have kept her from opening this up. Thank you for being here. Im not going to spend a lot of time on introductions because you have the bios in front of you and it is important to get into the conversation. I am honored to be able to introduce her because ive known her work for a number of years. The policy program at the Aspen Institute, we need to make certain families are able to move up economic mobility. It very much is about making certain the family opportunity, their goals, their needs are really addressed first and foremost, lifted up in policy and program. Has been around for ten years. We have a Leadership Program and a network of nonprofit organizations to cross the country. 380 of them. The whole party approach. We need to work intentionally with policy programs and policy makers at the state and federal level to make certain structural barriers are dressed and make certain we take a Racial Equity and gender lens to our work. In driving the work a gender lens. Also through the work that and had done over her career. Having friends like Karen Sherman, the passion she has had really have flourished in their relationship over many years. One of the things that she is doing now is coconvening the aspen forum on women and girls which is relevant to this conversation. That is a program and an initiative she leads with teddy clark who is the executive director as well as the Vice President at the Aspen Institute, she runs a program called the Aspen Global Innovators Group and another strong policy program at the Aspen Institute. With that i want to introduce Barbara Klein who is going to be leading the conversation with Karen Sherman. There will be time for question and answer. We would like to make certain you are fully aware that we are honored to have barbara as our conversationalist for today and make certain you know that she is really talented. Dont know if you have her book yourself. But she has an amazing career not only being an actor but a newscaster for a long time globally and here in washington dc. We are honored to have you and Karen Sherman, thank you for being here. I will turn it over to you. So great to be here. A real honor to talk to Karen Sherman about her book. Her background has taken her all over the world, to help and work with them, afghanistan, bosnia, very courageous, commendable, in my opinion crazy. I want to give the broad outline to see if it is okay with you, she decides to go to rwanda for a year for work with her three sons, leave her husband in bethesda and she decides to do this for work, also to work personally on her soul, her psyche and to work on what she reveals in the book is trouble in her marriage and she is brutally honest about all three of these aspects in this book. I guarantee when you read it you will find there are times you wont be able to breeze. Whether it is stories, descriptions of women you are working with, that you have met or descriptions of your own life. And that is what the book is about. Thank you for being here and thank you to marjorie for the warm introduction. I appreciate it. Such a huge fan of all the wonderful work you are doing. It is a story i have wanted to tell even after i went to rwanda but this idea of being a person who straddles the developed and developing world for most of my professional career, i am in bethesda maryland, afghanistan, south sudan, bethesda, congo, looking at the way that women live and are forced to live in a lot of these societies and contrasting that with the lives we have here and it is not just a privilege question but how women lack voice and choice in so many conflict around the world and thankfully not just in the developing world but the developed world too. To tell those stories modified my own, an honor for me to do that. Why did you write it all down . Why did you want to share all of this publicly . I was working with a group called women for Women International the works with women survivors in postconflict zones, afghanistan, south sudan, congo, nigeria, kos of oh and bosnia. Part of my job was to take down the story, i have notebooks full of them over ten years and we took down these stories for purposes of writing Success Stories and being able, part of your monitoring and evaluation, how you do your work. You live with these stories, they dont go away. I had all these stories but there was my story, a story that felt disingenuous to write a book about other women stories, not be willing to put my own alongside that page. Host tell us a little bit about your story personally that you felt you had to work through as you are working with women in crisis. Guest i grew up in portland, oregon but it was a typical childhood. My father was very abusive and he was abusive to my mother and children, it was interesting, growing up. I identified with my father versus my mother. I carry that with me for a long time and i couldnt understand my mothers relationship, where her missing voice was, why she would stay in a marriage that was abusive. It really wasnt until i was in rwanda that i started to connect the dots between how i grew up and my mother and her family and so many women around the world live including in rwanda. It is a story i had heard over and over but i hadnt personalized it. I do want to know about how did you connect the dots . What was the connection . One of the things that was striking in this book was how honest you are, yes, your father was abusive, you get into it here. He hit you. Yes. Host tell us how that affected you and you realize again, it is in the book, but how you then who you became as an adult. Guest we all have stories from childhood, stories we live with. For me, the way i dealt with this growing up was this idea of being above reproach. I will be supercompetent and this superwoman. I will go out and get straight as, get the great job, have three kids, do everything right but there is no such thing as being above reproach. I started the catalyst really, for my move to rwanda i had applied for the ceo position. I didnt get it and i was devastated but in some ways i was unnaturally devastated and i was realizing i dont want to say it is a house of cards but the story i had told myself about everything, how i was working, things i needed to do to be this person, it started to unravel a bit. Everything i have done to pump myself up with the family and the kids and all of that became quite vulnerable. Rwanda helped me unpack all of that. Host how . Guest i think it was getting more perspective, sitting down and talking to a number of women survivors of war. I had taken down their stories but it was a job. This was about me looking at those stories in a different way. It was me interna lies in the story not just for work but woman to woman. The title is really a metaphor for how women rebuild their lives a brick at a time. For me while i was in rwanda i was deconstructing it. I was on building its like a build it up again. Tell us the story, your stories of women, individuals here whom you met. Deborah, for example. How does her story, how did you connect the dots between your life enters . Deborah is one of the really most challenging stories in the book. Deborah had lost her husband and all six of her children in the genocide, including, not to be so graphic but including having the baby she was carrying on her back, lifted up and had their neck, and she watched all of her children die. And her husband died in the water and she lay floating on the water, you know, until the kelly stopped essentially. She ran around for two weeks with basically just the clothes on her back and she was in hiding with no food, no water. She went back to her neighborhood. There was nothing left. This is like somebody who actually lost everything, husband, children, livelihood, home. We were having this conversation in her house. She went through the women for women program. She actually got trained in knitting and she got a machine, and knitting machine sent to her by relative who was living in europe and she started making knitted sweaters and things like that, then she started making some money and she bought several more machines and she was making a living. And then she had a retail shop and she had, shes making thousands of dollars. She was just talking about how she built a business and she got a bank loan and she had a house and she went into partnership with some of the people. Basically how she had rebuild her life, a brick at the time. In her case for bricks were sweaters. It made me realize if she could do that, anybody, anybody could do that. If you think that you cant survive anything and yet youre still able to live and smile and dance and find a bit of joy in life, that, you know, its just a sense of the ultimate sense of perspective is what i would say. Theres a huge leap they are from floating in the water pretending she was dead to getting being trained, getting sewing machines. She wanted to live. She didnt lose faith in life. How . I cant answer that. I cant tell you what it is inside of her that kept her going. But what i can say is, having spent ten years working with women everywhere, not just in rwanda but multiple countries, i spent 15 years working in the former soviet union. There is something inside women. Women in particular, with no disrespect meant in the room but the something inside women that keeps them going and keeps them striving. A lot of it has to do with just basic instinct for survival, but in the case of deborah, and many other women, it had to do with keeping their families going, keeping something going, and they felt this deep sense of responsibility to keep going for others. And ill give you one other story and again, not trying to be gruesome but just to contextualize this. There is a woman in bosnia, and theres a story about her where she was living sidebyside with her once friendly neighbors, and then the war happen and her neighbors basically turned vigilante. Her husband was taken away and forced into hard labor. She was taken to this empty house by her once friendly neighbors, raped and tortured repeatedly, and then the men said to her, we should kill her. Then another one said no, we shouldnt kill her. She will kill herself. Wow. And so what you said is, you know, she had a new baby boy into basically said i needed to live for him. Lest we think that the stories are all about crises shes a brutal interviewer. You know, some of these women are in crises, the rwanda genocide, the civil war in bosnia and herzegovina and kosovo here but its every day for many of the women whose stories you tell in this book. And im thinking, number one, about marriage, the fact that many are not married, and number two, specifically the story but i cant remember her name, woman whose husband parceled out the meat because having to do with how much value he thought she brought to the family. This is an everyday story. Were not talking about a political crisis or war. Tell us about it. Its just this story, and its interesting, this question of food, but it had come up a couple of times, and again not only in rwanda but this idea that these husbands were basically parceling out food depending on the perceived worth of their women. And so she was, she said my husband told me i should be fed like like a bird because and not contributing financially. So the control of food comes up multiple times by many, if you think about a place like south sudan, too, where women really are valued beneath animals. And it isnt just about food, but mean exercising all the lives of control about education, home, being able to leave the home. Its just that women are perceived in so many cultures. At again i dont want people to think this is just about africa or just about wartorn countries because ive seen this level of marginalization and other places, too. Its just less notable. In your own home when you were growing up. Thats right. You know, its in my own home but its in a lot of peoples home. How many hearing about the me too movement, the stories that women are setting inside themselves every single day . Theres a light in the book that everybody has a story, even if its just the one we tell ourselves to get through the day. I think thats true for a lot of people and to think its true for a lot of women. They are just unable to share those stories. So think about this. The statistic just kills me. One in 16 women in the United States experience rape as the first sexual encounter. One in 16 women, thats an astounding statistic. Lest we think it south sudanese women or congolese women or rwanda women are afghan women. Its all of us. It also struck me when i was taking notes in the book how important rule of law is. Because you cite one in 16 in this country. At least we know its wrong and its in our laws, right . Not that it gets played out necessarily. In fact, often it doesnt. But in thinking in other countries where the culture doesnt recognize it necessarily. You would be surprised how many countries have laws on the book. Really . You would be surprised. Its an enforcement issue. Its a reporting issue. And in many countries, and its in this country, also, women dont report, women dont talk about it, women dont have a place to go. A lot of it has to do with they dont have their own in, to be able to make different choices. And so i say in the book having to stay in choosing to stay our two entirely different things. My mother couldnt stay. When i was growing up you asked how i dealt with this, i was like i am always going to have my own income. I never want to feel like im this person who has to stay it if i choose to stay, thats up to me. Thats something you have taken to your work. Yes. So tell us about sort of the way, the conclusion that your reach, the way you synthesize all these stories, many different parts of the world, many different cultures, and what conclusion you came to as the two basic things. I mean, what ive seen end of a single country context including here in the United States is the two things that give women voice and choices are an education and the ability to earn an income. And actually education without income is insufficient to change the status quo for women and girls. And ive seen that plant everywhere. Education may give your voice but it does not give you choice. And so i think women need to have their own income to have that ability to not just leave it to be able to make different choices. This might be choices how many have saved and spent come choices around sending or keeping children, particularly girls in school, choices if youre suffering from violence or abuse in the family. Okay. So with your work and rwanda, congo, south sudan, nigeria, how did you see it possible to start giving or helping girls and women get those two things going in their lives . I mean, i think its interesting. So at women for women it was all about, it was a Yearlong Program a son job skills training, business skills, and really looking at different Market Opportunities for women to be able to earn an income. We talked about selling bananas. Incubate as simple of selling bananas. But it was about having a bit of income, a lot of these women would come i remember when i first joined the program they might buy a bunch of bananas and bring it home to the family to show that there was some value to the training, that they have something to offer. But you would be surprised, when i was living in rwanda we ran an entrepreneurship competition. Some of the women who it started these very tiny microbusinesses years ago had like 25 employees. They were doing regional tray. They are partners in uganda and kenya. So you would be surprised how little it takes to make a difference in somebodys lives it blew me away. Thats what always talk about thats the brick by brick. It doesnt take that much. And now im working with a group called institute which is also about voice and choice in creating Economic Opportunity for young women. It is the first and only Womens College in rwanda, started ten years ago and its all about, its a diploma programs linked to some of the Fastest Growing sectors of economy and its all about giving women and education and the ability to earn an income and 86 of those graduates are in the workforce in rwanda right now earning on average 11 times the National Median income. Akilah is interesting. In that countries economy you focus on, its not a college like arts and sciences, Political Science or psychology or whatever. What are the three . The three are Hospitality Management and tourism, information systems, or i. T. , and Small Business management and entrepreneurship. And i think the thinking was we started with the private sector and worked backwards. And so we made sure that the skills that these young women were developing had relevance in the marketplace. We didnt start with the supply. We started with the demand. And i think that what i think about the young women who have graduated from akilah, and by the way, these are not like the elite of the side in rwanda. 78 of them are the first and family and the fans go to college, over 50 for baroque areas. This is a life changing education for these your women at a of them as the daughters of the women for women women, if you will. I can tell you having talked to some other mothers, they gave up everything, everything so the daughters could have a College Education. Speaking of which, tell us the story if you would about vanessa. Okay. Vanessa, that is also just an amazing story. I met a woman by the name of grace in rwanda, and this is one of the most Amazing Stories ive heard of, but this takes place during the genocide. And she is a young woman who is ten years old. She is walking with her family. They are leaving rwanda to go shes a child. Walking with her family and they are leaving rwanda. Its the middle of the genocide. Shes with her grandmother. She had been seeing the killing all around her, and so she walks past this field and she sees a woman lying there with the baby on top of her. And the woman motions over to her. And so her grandmother is like, dont go over there. Leave the baby. We are leaving, getting out of here. She walks over and she picks up the baby, and the grandmother basically says leave the baby, its going to be dangerous for us. You cant take the baby. She picks up the baby. Shes ten years old. She picks up the baby and puts the baby on her back and they continue walking to congo to this refugee camp where they live. If you think about that choice, that choice as a tenyearold girl making the choice to pick up the baby, so thats the part of the story. They come back to rwanda and shes raising this baby as her own. And the babies name is vanessa. So she finally tells vanessa the truth when vanessa is 13 and she says, im your mother but i your sister and i your auntie. And if you can understand that, we can live together for a very long time. And then doesnt vanessa go to vanessa goes on to score. I actually just saw vanessa and grace on my last trip to rwanda. An amazing story. Just another story i want to make sure to get in as i i d it sort of amusing, is, and it also illustrates the obstacles that people, that women confront. And that is when these women are working the land of the governor, i think, and so tell us about hes a high level official. Hes a jerk. [laughing] yeah. Wasnt this congo . It was in congo. So tell us about the women, they are working the land, getting some benefit from it and that was an easy to get permission to do that. Thats right. We had set up a commercial farm in congo, and women were going back and forth to farm the land. The mwame, its a Traditional Land ownership, and so he oversaw Land Ownership. Hes like the king of he oversaw Land Ownership and so he had made a concessionary gift of this land except that he want us to buy him a new car. He wanted a land rover. We were having these negotiations and so you know, one could think that maybe he cared about these women earning a living and the women farming the land, but we would have multiple negotiations and get her to be publicly in the eye, it is like him how can i see all my property if i dont have a car . And so we were going through this process of, you know, corrupt officials into the with the Land Ownership question. So we had to look for a new piece of land is women to farm. He kept bringing this up, i i want a land cruiser. Thats hysterical. I mean, on one level. I also want to get back to your personal story. Because you lay it bear and it come in many ways i think a lot of people, men and women who are married, will recognize. I, frankly when i read about your sons are there, three sergey brin to rwanda. Raise your hand, sam. Yes. He lived through it. And youre right about the problems in your marriage and youre on the wheel. He will talk about questions you have, you wont want to stay married . What is this about . And then you talk more about your work, the women youre working with, then you come back and you on the same wheel again. The guilt about your kids. They all had the flu at one point, and you had to go to congo. How did you feel about that . How did you justify to yourself leaving these poor kids in rwanda . Or sam. With the flu. I mean, i think its at the same personally of any woman. I dont think thats so particularly unique. I mean, i could overlay the context of conflict is affected countries. And also being a working mom but a working traveling mom to its been a bunch my career working overseas. Obviously, a lot of gratitude to my husband was also in the audience who is watching the kids all those times when im traveling to some of those places. But i think that its hard and its messy, and i think, i dont know any woman in my personal network who would tell you otherwise, that marriage can be hard and marriage can be messy, and you add in children and you add in travel and all the difficult choices and tradeoffs that we have to make as women. I just felt like i wasnt willing to gloss over those pieces of the story because they are part of the story. They are part of me as a woman, as a mother, as a wife, as a professional. I felt like, ive been asked so many times by young women, how to do this and have kids . What does it look like . I could tell you its great all the time and as no problems but a lot of times it was winning ugly, ill be really honest with you, and i think knowing that is just, its part of the package. But what i make different choices . Thats the question. No, i wouldnt. What do you want people to carry away with them after they read the book . Thats a good question. For me, as this person as i said who straddles both worlds, choice is a gift that many women around the world dont share. And for people to realize that its a luxury to be able to choose, to have choices and to know that in yourself that, if you are starting or you find it debilitating to have to make this difficult choices, these women in every single country context are making these, the most difficult of choices. Eventually i found that inspiring, that i could make this difficult choices, too, whether they were about my marriage, the kind of mother i wanted to be, they kind of work that i was doing. And i found that both, the gift of understanding and the inspiration of it helped me to move on to a better place. And i thought that might be helpful for other people, too. What about what should we be carrying away with us in terms of the way we deal with our world, the way we act in our world . What we put in to the world. I think, i firmly believe that once you know you cant unknow. I think the recipe and openness and awareness to looking at different ways of thinking and being. I think quite easily as americans maybe could think thats that me and particularly for women thats not me. I do have to Pay Attention to that. And ive been guilty of that myself on multiple occasions. Its easy to get like this and say thats not me. But i think just that openness, that awareness, that theres actually more that connect us up as women, as mothers, as human beings that then we think about that appear on the surface. And i really want to be able to connect those dots with this book. Im going to talk about your mother for a minute. I want to know what she thought about the book. Because thats an important part of your connecting the dots. Its a good question. I actually you will read the book but it didnt show the book with my parents until the last minute because i didnt come its like if its not going to be published i really dont need to go there. But i went there and its interesting. I thought it could go one of two ways. One, my parents would be upset with me for telling the story, or they could embrace it. Actually the latter happened. Both my father and my mother, and i got the nicest note from my mother about the book, her pride, and the story, her pride in me. And i think, you know, it did in some ways, theres a healing aspect to it being able for all of us, to be able to tell your story out loud. In the same way that so many me too survivors are wanting to tell their stories out loud. I think we just sit on your story and you keep your story inside, its very painful. It can be very hurtful. I think being able to share it out loud, breaking the silence, connecting with other people who have stories, that may not be the same story but its the story nonetheless. Being able to do that in a place is, its a good thing, its a healing thing. Lori adams, the ceo for women for Women International which is a great group, groups are organized in 25 women together. Theres the training so important but more than that, its the women being able to come together. Sometimes talking for that very first time in their lives and sharing their stories. I remember being in congo. When i first trips there at the director programs there, these women are so traumatized. Some of them cant even say the names out loud. Can you think about that . They cant even say the names out loud. So being in an if i were you can actually talk and speak and tell your truth and tell your story, this is my story. I guess do we have time for we have two minutes. I asked a simple question. So far you have thrown me softballs. Its more of a macro question. You say in here that this is concluded this is important for individuals lives, for all of our lives, to enhance our understanding of the world and so forth, but it is also, you say in the book, crucial to development and stability in a country to have women have voice and choice. What is the link . So, i mean, there is a lot of data that shows that countries where women have greater education and where women are engaged in paid work, are inherently more sustainable. Countries with greater gender equality are inherently more sustainable. And you know that when women are working the contributes to more positive and inclusive Economic Growth that actually women being educated and able to earn an income is better for climate change. That there are a number of positive effects that come with women being educated and beat able to earn an income. So it isnt something that is just good for women or even just good for the family. There is a lot of data that shows its good for society and in you look at the statistics. We are heading up the 25th anniversary of beijing is this year and if you look at the staff, 130 Million Girls are still out of school stats. 49 young women are still married in africa before their 15th birthday, right . Four out of five victims of Human Trafficking are girls. One in three women are victims of violence. One in three women, right . When we talk about the unfinished business, theres a heck of a lot of it. Yeah. So on that note, thank you. I just want to say, you just mentioned a lot of data. The rich thing about readings brick by brick for me and hope for you is that the stories bring to life these numbers, and make it very real. And you will hold your breath through some of it. Not only the stories of the women she is work with but your own story about dealing with marriage, about dealing with the issues left over from an abusive household. So that you very much for the honesty of this book, and its fascinating. Thank you. [applause] i think we are to take questions for karen. Did you find resistance from women that you ended up getting their stories but how did you get them to open up to you the way they did to share the way they did . And then also, being a white women of privilege going into these countries, but once the dynamic there, or did it just go hearttoheart and that didnt matter . No, thats a very, very good question. First of all, the stories that people share a completely voluntary. Its really up to women if they want to share their stories. Absolutely. Very conscious of being a white woman. But i worked this is not non africa thing for me. Like i said, ive been working in the developing world for about 30 years now, thinking all across the former soviet union and certainly multiple countries beyond africa. Im just very conscious of my role and my place in come into somebody elses environment. I am a guest, and thats exactly how i felt in rwanda. Im a guest in that country. I am there to listen. I am there to have a conversation, not there to judge. Im not there to impose. And so within the confines of that dynamic, people feel i think comfortable sharing their stories. You have to be a deep listener, but thats the of the reason i chose to share my story, too. Because im not going to just help other peoples stories. Im going to put my own story on the line, too. You have tackled a part of education secretary [inaudible] postprimary education. Investments go to primary education, investors going to Tertiary Education at the most neglected segment of the population terms of education and health are adolescent girls. Access to six graydon. And you know that, the sector knows that, countries know that. What is your vision . You have broken boundaries with the institute, but what is your vision for adolescent girls access to education . I think were to continue to push the envelope on education about keeping girls in schools longer. But i dont think thats enough. I think they kind of education that young women receive matter. Im not one of those people who believe in education for educations sake. Because i think its about having the right skills, the right attitudes, right mindsets to be able to transition to the workforce, even if youre not going to go on to Tertiary Education. And, frankly, we are at a a potentially crisis point here in terms of the way work is evolving, in terms of new technologies, in terms of climate change, in terms of future economy synthetically be digitized. You all racing gaps in terms of womens skills, access to technology. So this has the potential to exacerbate that gap for women and girls getting an education. Shes working with adolescent girls in malawi. To me we need to create a better bridge programs to tertiary. We need to grade better bridge programs to the private sector. We need to embed skillsbased education as early as primary and on through. So for those who are taking off ramps to education, they are at least leaving with the right skill sets instead of just being in the class, rote memorization and have nothing they can use to go on. The most heartbreaking thing that i can think of is those young women in malawi who did manage to make it all the way to secondary school and there at home, sitting there, they have nowhere to go. They have nothing to do. They have no means to earn an income. Their life is essentially done in that respect. So basically Education Needs to be finetuned for the market, or the economy . I believe it does. Thank you very much for sharing your story and bringing the story of these women to d. C. , which is a place for lots of this policy is written. You spoke a little bit about the importance of womens spaces and i was education is important but simply creating a space where women can come together and meet each other and speak. So could you possibly share more stories about that, womens spaces and it was great in the spaces . Is at the women themselves or is it International Organizations who are coming in with that idea . What works best in terms of creating these spaces . I think women spaces can take all shapes and sizes. I think women for women, the program is structured around these training groups of 25, and it was done very intentionally to be sort of a a space not jut for trading but sort of group therapy, if you will, to be able to do that. At akilah we stored as a womens only college so that women would have a safe place to learn. I dont mean safe just in a physical sense but the fact is that even though rwanda is one of those great countries where you have the highest percentage of women in parliament anyway in the world, you still have entrenched patriarchy. You have situations where there is classrooms what theres one computer, women dont touch it. Women are not comfortable putting up their hands. When i say a safe space, this is a safe place for women to lead the clubs, to lead the student guild, to be able to have this kick ass all womens debate team, to have their own computer lab. Thats a safe space, too. You even sit in this country. Now we have these women, womens working spaces where women can come together and network with each other. So many shapes and sizes. I also see the value of very importantly engaging men in somebody spaces, too. So akilah actually recently opened up Davis College so we have come opportunity for women to learn alongside men in addition to the singlesex option. Theres lot of research that says engaging men and gender equality is a really good thing. I actually talk about that a little bit in my book. Im really interested in your book. Id use to run a National Advocacy organization here in the states for survivors of Sexual Assault up for that i spent time a low time and rwanda and was with women survivors can Sexual Assault and genocide, and former child soldiers from joseph conus army. One thing that was really striking today was the role that Restorative Justice played in healing from the genocide and particularly women and the capacity for forgiveness and for Community Healing i think its a conversation happening more in the United States now. You had a question about law and order a very respectful think a majority of survivors would say they do feel the current reporting system in the states are working for them. People are looking for other options. I do know what role the displayed in your work. It hasnt come up today but i was when it got any thoughts on what we can learn around the world from the Restorative Justice process used in rwanda and what that space is for women into the in particular. Its interesting that you say that because actually the founder of women for Women International wrote an interesting article about this very question about what commitment from rwanda or south africa or other countries where there really used a Restorative Justice process to bring society back together again. It was a question really posed in terms of what comes after me too. These guys, theyre ostracized, out there, you are not going to lock them all up or you will not find all of them. But then even if you did, what next . How do you create healing for the women themselves and their families . So what could Restorative Justice look like in this particular context where women really are able to confront their accusers. And at least be able to talk about their stories to be able to have that kind of feeling take place at a personal level. Even when using the me too and harvey weinstein, those women, virtue of them are going to get their day in court and everybody else was on the outside saying i want to tell my story. Even if its not in court and even if theres no in after that, the ability to share your story to say out loud, to be heard i think has huge value. Yes. My name is roscoe and good to see you, karen. Thank you. I question is, is this especially in societies that are just beginning to put their act together . And women are in power, especially young girls . How do they relate to their male counterparts . And eventually i imagine most of them want to make families, so any insight in the kind of family that builds from aa steady standpoint . Maybe you could also tell us if youve done that with your own sons, how to deal with, how to talk to them in dealing with its really good question. Its interesting. What we do know and even the statistics on the akilah students is there actually reinvesting in their own families, their families of origin, at 81 are paying for healthcare or school fees for other family members. Its really interesting. Its, in terms of their future marriages, they are changed after they come to program like ours. I think men might find them a little intimidating sometimes. I was sitting around with a group of alumni and their say its really hard to get a date. [laughing] you know, once your super empowered its hard come you cant put the genie back in the box. Thats a good thing. In terms of my signs, it was really, signs. You will appreciate this but my job was working with women all day and then had three sons. I am with boys all night. That was a running family joke, but really for me it was important to show my sons this idea of a woman out in the world doing good work and to be somebody that i thought they could be proud of. As as a role model for them and their relationship, and i really wanted them to be good men and good global citizens. I have to say all three of them are exceptional voice. [applause] boys. You get the mic. Thank you. Im the guy left behind in washington, d. C. While my wife is out doing what you are doing. She is out there now and working on womens empowerment, womens equality, gender inequality. She started in nepal with the program that was most amazing. It touches where you are sort of in between the women who had been through hell and the women who are now getting a College Education in ecotourism. It was a savings led micro program, entrepreneurship. It really, 20 years later, the women are out there still doing Amazing Things and they are not poor anymore. Its one of the few programs by the with anybody ever went back five, tinges later and see what happened. What i ask you is, what is the interim between tragedy and say Higher Education . What helps get women to the point where the can get to that point, due to a higher level . How they can earn money through micro enterprises. Savings led micro finance, microcredit, something you ran into. It is now generally agreed that microcredit doesnt work anymore. Yes. And savings led micro finance does work and its lifting millions of women out of povert poverty. I mean, i think its the same thing. Its not a magic bullet but, i mean, its the access to knowledge and access to resources. And it doesnt have to look the same. What that knowledge piece is it doesnt have to be Tertiary Education. It doesnt have to be secondaryr school. It can be a training that gives women access to knowledge. At the same time and ability to earn money. Its those two things. What you are saying is they probably got savings education. They learned how to be fiscally responsible. And at the same time they have d the means to make some strategic investment that allowed them to grow themselves so their Small Businesses and be able to invest in the families. I dont personally think its a magic bullet. They could be as small as, those women we are talking about at women for women, do you how much they were earning at baseline . 30 cents a day. These women are earning basically 1. 90 1. 90 a day ant may not seem i cannot in our context but thats the difference between being able to send your kids to school and virtually having nothing. For akilah, 11 times the National Median income means that you are electrifying your house, having bank accounts, all your kids are in school. Your kids are thriving in terms of health, education and nutrition. On any level what ever way you want to start, i talk about stepbystep, brick by brick. Thats where you go. Can i just have one thing . Theres a picture in the book of the Woman Holding up her accounting, her chart of accounts. I have no idea how much value was in it, but she has such pride in just having learned how to organize and keep track, and not on take care of her family but we invest in our business. Can i tell a story . Im not the boss. Would love to hear it. You talked about women telling their stories. I was in a womens group meeting, and they were all gathered in a circle. My wife was asking them introduce yourself and tell us where you come from, what you are doing. I remember one woman in particular, she was so embarrassed, so shy, she couldnt even speak and she just sat there, pulled her veil over her face. We think it everybody a piece of paper and asked them to draw a picture of the proudest moment in the life. When did it something they were really proud of. Then they went around and this woman who couldnt speak stood up, held up a picture. It was just marks on a paper and she told you a story that would make you cry. And those women, telling their stories, apparently created 62,000 new businesses without any training, without any input, without any education. Simply by sharing their Success Stories to each other. [applause] thank you for that. And thank you for joining us this afternoon in your thoughtful questions. Barbara, thank you for your real skillful [applause] and karen, hank you for sharing your story and the story of women who are surviving anywhere. We really appreciate that you honored as with the launch of your book talk, and thank you so much. So there would be opportunity to purchase the book out in the lobby and also karen would be cited. They get so much for being with us this afternoon. [applause] you are watching a a special edition of booktv airing now during the week while millions of cars are working at their districts because of the coronavirus pandemic. Please enjoy booktv now and also watch over the weekend on cspan2. Good evening. Thank you, everybody for coming. I am tim carney, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise institute. Im also the commentor editor at the Washington Examiner and we have great discussion tonight. We brought here chris arnade, the author of dignity which came out earlier this
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