“The 10 Women Who Inspire Me Always”

8.  Sunita Narain

Sunita Narain is the Director General of the Centre for Science and Environment, a New Delhi-based public interest, research, and advocacy organization that researches and lobbies for sustainable and equitable development. Narain also heads the Society for Environmental Communications, and publishes the fortnightly science and environment magazine, Down to Earth. Her research has focused on the relationship between the environment and development, and has raised awareness about the vital need for sustainable development.

9.  Marceline Ouedraogo

Marceline Ouedraogo is President of Burkina Faso’s rural women’s association, Songtaab-Yalgré, which is the first group in the country to produce and sell certified organic shea butter. When she started Songtaab-Yalgré in 1990, Ouedraogo went door to door and woman to woman, asking people to join. Because many of the women who joined the association were illiterate, Ouedraogo developed a program to teach them to read and to write. Today, the association is composed of over three thousand women in nearly a dozen villages, and has 11 centers where they collect arechete, or shea butter nuts. All of the profits from the sale of shea butter—and peanut oil, soap, and other products the group is now making—are distributed equally among the members.

10.  Nely Rodriguez 

Nely Rodriguez is a mother, farmworker, and key leader with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a community-based farmworker organization based in the southern United States. CIW is comprised of more than 4,000 mostly Latino, Haitian, and Mayan Indian members working mainly in agriculture throughout the state of Florida. Rodriguez has been a vital part of organizing and inspiring her community to speak out against injustice in the tomato fields. She is also vocal about the hardships and sacrifices women make in the fields to put food on the table for their families while caring for and raising children.

All these incredible women are doing their work in different ways. Some, for example, work on global policy initiatives, while others work with neighbours and like-minded individuals on the local level. All, however, are sources of inspirations for their friends, families, communities, and those working to further important social and environmental courses in other countries. I hope that they can inspire GSDM readers to take positive action in their lives—no matter how big or small.

(Danielle Nierenberg is the Director of the Washington D.C.-based Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet project, which highlights innovations around the world that are working to help alleviate hunger and poverty while also protecting the environment.)

Who inspires you? Share in the comments below.

This article was originally published in the October 2012 “Inspiration” issue of Global South Development Magazine.