This past year, several countries where She Is Safe works (Egypt, Sudan, and Mali) have been affected by armed conflict. Destabilization puts women and girls at even greater risk of rape and sexual exploitation.
The siege of Mali has forced over 450,000 people to flee their homes. In Timbuktu, women and girls can no longer buy and sell, or attend school. Seeking freedom and safety, many women and children made the perilous journey through the desert to build new lives in the more stable city of Bamako, Mali’s capital.
Working with local Christian leaders, we helped to open a new Women’s Center in Bamako, to meet the physical, economic, and spiritual needs of displaced women. The Center provides vocational training, literacy, personal support, and supplemental food. In many cases, women and children are experiencing the best care and the greatest opportunities in their lives.
So, these terrible circumstances have brought new opportunities to expand our work to prevent, rescue and restore displaced women and girls, not only in Mali, but in Syria and South Sudan.
If you would like to help, please donate to the SIS Emergency Response Fund. This fund gives us the ability to respond without hesitation when women and girls are in danger in the high risk places where we work, getting them to safety and helping them build whole new lives.
For forgotten girls,
Michele Rickett
President & Founder