An innovative and practical publication 100 Under $100: One Hundred Tools for Empowering Global Women (Teutsch, 2015) is proving helpful to maternal child nurses and others desiring to engage in low-cost, high-impact solutions designed to empower women across the global. This resource outlines 100 tools for empowering global women costing $100 or less. As the communications director of Green Microfinance, Teutsch wrote about women she met in searching for effective and outstanding empowerment strategies throughout the world. She concluded that "These women's stories and accomplishments deserve a wider audience" (Teutsch, p. xi), and so she produced this creative book.
Criteria for strategies included are that they are (a) replicable in varied sociocultural and diverse healthcare systems settings, (b) user rather than provider focused, and (c) have proven effectiveness (outcomes data). The $100 limit for described strategies was set so that women living in extreme poverty with very limited resources can benefit with a small capital investment. According to Teutsch, even small amounts of money can be extremely effective for helping those in poverty. Tools outlined in this text are categorized as follows:
* General health interventions (such as an umbilical cord treatment for only 25 cents, micronutrient-fortification of food and supplements, or low-cost vaccine delivery)
* Girls' and women's health interventions (such as the replacement of female genital mutilation with cutting-free initiation into womanhood, cervical cancer vinegar screening, or the administration of low-cost misoprostol for prevention and treatment of postpartum hemorrhage)
* Energy interventions (such as bicycle-powered machines to reduce consumption of electricity or fuel, solar home systems, or portable solar lanterns such as the Uganda-based Solar Sister LED lantern)
* Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene [WASH] (such as the simple act of handwashing, the provision of menstrual supplies to facilitate school attendance for girls or rainwater harvesting with the Rain Saucer barrel used in Latin America)
* Domestic technology (such as improved kitchen equipment like the Off-Fire Reboiling Pot used in China at a cost of $15 or GiraDora which is a laundering microenterprise)
* Subsistence farming (such as keyhole gardens using compost columns in Lesotho or goat raising by women)
* Construction (such as plastic bottle solar lights placed in the roof providing the equivalent of a 55-W light bulb or the use of bottle bricks for home construction)
* Transportation (such as affordable wheelchairs provided by Wheelchair of Hope for children whose mobility is impaired or replacing head-carrying by women with affordable wheeled handcarts such as the Malawi AfriCart project)
* Information and Communications Technology (such as digital platforms for women's voices like World Pulse, the use of cell phones, or enhancing literacy in women and children)
* Financial (such as microloans providing small funds for women to become economically self-sufficient such as Village Savings and Loan Societies)
* Legal strategies (such as universal birth registration, combating sex trafficking, or the eradication of forced marriages of girls).
There are innovative tools for women's cooperatives to share, including village savings societies and sanitary napkin dispensers. Innovative travel opportunities to volunteer during global vacations are suggested, including World Bicycle Relief distributing bicycles in Africa and Stove Team International designed to meet the needs of Central American women. Opportunities to give service using professional skills such as nursing and midwifery are also described in the text. Some suggested opportunities for healthcare professionals include volunteering with "Midwives for Haiti" and "Grounds for Health" for cervical cancer screening missions.
Opportunities to become involved and share what you are doing as an individual and/or organization are continually being updated at http://www.100Under100.org. At this Web site you can add your own narrative data and images to share your engagement in empowering women, improving not only their lives but their families and communities. Become part of making a significant difference in the health and well-being of vulnerable women and their families.
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