Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, a national foundation-led initiative, is excited to collaborate with the Women’s Foundation to bring you the latest news and analysis on women and poverty.

Spotlight is the go-to site for news and ideas about fighting poverty.

For daily updates and links to past articles, check out “Women and Poverty.” It’s a new section of our site with a comprehensive collection of recent news and analysis on women and poverty.

Along with these daily updates, continue to visit TheWomensFoundation.org for our weekly rundown of the top news stories on women and poverty every Friday.

Here’s this week’s news:

• The New York Times profiles a nonprofit that provides free clothing to assist low-income women entering the work force.

• A Chicago Sun Times column focuses on Mama Brenda, a Chicago spoken word poet who performs outreach to single mothers and others in need.

• A new program is encouraging healthy eating by increasing the value of food stamps for low-income mothers who shop at farmers markets, according to the Washington Post.

• The Los Angeles Times notes that among the proposed cuts from California’s budget are treatment for breast and cervical cancer for illegal immigrants and women older than 65.

• As reported by the Albuquerque Journal, the economic downturn has forced a local program for low-income girls to merge with a parallel program for boys.

To learn more about Spotlight, visit www.spotlightonpoverty.org.  

To sign up for our weekly updates with the latest news, opinion and research from around the country, click here.

The Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity Team

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity is a foundation-led, non-partisan initiative aimed at ensuring that our political leaders take significant actions to reduce poverty and increase opportunity in the United States. We bring together diverse perspectives from the political, policy, advocacy and foundation communities to engage in an ongoing dialogue focused on finding genuine solutions to the economic hardship confronting millions of Americans.

We’re pleased to announce that the audio and presentations from the 2009 Stepping Stones Research Briefing are now available online, thanks to our partner and co-sponsor, The Urban Institute.

This year’s briefing focused on the realities facing low-income women and their families in the current recession, as well as strategies to help them cope. 

Speakers at this year’s briefing included Heather Boushey from the Center for American Progress, Ed Lazere with the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, Marty Schwartz with Vehicles for Change and more.

The briefing was also live-Tweeted @TheWomensFndtn with hashtag #SSRB.

Lisa Kays is The Women’s Foundation’s Director of Communications.

Well, the Interwebs are certainly all abuzz this week with talk of women’s philanthropy.  And the talk is good.

First, a Fidelity study shows that women are shaping the future of philanthropy.

Okay, we knew that.

But still, the report shows a number of positive, exciting new trends, such as that women are growing more comfortable giving with their name attached now, are being increasingly innovative in their philanthropic choices and are increasingly making decisions for how their households will give.

Additionally, Tactical Philanthropy featured a post, "Six Principles of Women’s High Engagement Philanthropy," which outlines the six principles (well worth a read) and offers the following introductory insight from Alice Eagly of Northwestern University, who says, "Women are transformational leaders while men are more likely to be transactional leaders."

Just like we’ve known at The Women’s Foundation for years: women are all about giving "beyond the check." 

Give and Take summarizes these discussions well here.

These pieces are exciting because they confirm what those of us practicing women’s philanthropy have long known to be true, as well as demonstrating that the movement is growing rapidly and with energy, despite the economic downturn and the many challenges it brings with it.

Indeed, as the song says that is so often heard at graduation ceremonies of our Grantee Partners’ job training and other programs, "Ain’t no stoppin’ us now."

Lisa Kays is The Women’s Foundation’s Director of Communications.

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, a national foundation-led initiative, is excited to collaborate with The Women’s Foundation to bring you the latest news and analysis on women and poverty.

Spotlight is the go-to site for news and ideas about fighting poverty.

For daily updates and links to past articles, check out “Women and Poverty.” It’s a new section of our site with a comprehensive collection of recent news and analysis on women and poverty.

Along with these daily updates, continue to visit TheWomensFoundation.org for our weekly rundown of the top news stories on women and poverty every Friday.

Here’s this week’s news:

• A Chicago Tribune article profiling a program that sends kids from a troubled area to summer camp to provide both enrichment and safety quotes a mom who is concerned for her son’s safety in their Chicago neighborhood.

• In a report appearing in USA Today, a single mom who lost her job is among those who send their children to a school catering specifically to homeless children.

• As covered by the Chicago Tribune, a clinic for low-income women is among those being closed due to financial constraints.

• In an op-ed in the Centre Daily Times, the author argues for stronger pre-natal health coverage for low-income women.

To learn more about Spotlight, visit www.spotlightonpoverty.org.  To sign up for our weekly updates with the latest news, opinion and research from around the country, click here.

The Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity Team

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity is a foundation-led, non-partisan initiative aimed at ensuring that our political leaders take significant actions to reduce poverty and increase opportunity in the United States. We bring together diverse perspectives from the political, policy, advocacy and foundation communities to engage in an ongoing dialogue focused on finding genuine solutions to the economic hardship confronting millions of Americans.

Over the last couple of weeks, there has been a lot of dialogue both on the regional and national level about what early care and education is. What should it be?  What should it focus on?

With the recent emphasis on a Birth To Five agenda by President Barak Obama and a focus on child care by First Lady Michelle Obama, is it any wonder so much attention is placed on the very young? 

It’s about time!

But I do worry that all the confusion and debate will fail us.  I worry we will miss the opportunity to finally have a national agenda that promotes the health of the very young and underserved.

Last week, The Washington Post had a piece by Charles Finn, entitled, "Slow the Preschool Bandwagon," which made me think about the recent universal preschool activities in VA, MD and D.C.  Mr. Finn cautions about advocating for universal pre-school.

I am in total agreement that more emphasis needs to be put on infants and toddlers, as well as existing programs that have consistently been proven to be effective, like Head Start and Early Head Start.

But there are a few points I struggled with. I worry about the push for social service programs to become more educational focused. Is advocating for Head Start preschoolers to learn their numbers and letters going to ensure they are going to succeed in school?

I do want to figure out how to ensure children in impoverished communities learn what they need to be prepared to succeed, but I worry  that the social service component (i.e. health, family support services, prenatal care, etc. ) will be compromised.

I would hope that it would not be the only focus.

And a few weeks ago, I was listening to the Kojo Nnamdi Show about the child care challenges in the region.  By the end of the show I was so frustrated. BB Otero, Founder and Executive Director of CentroNia (a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation), tried to explain the complicated debate that is taking place around early care and education and the need to be very clear about how we define this debate.

Is it child care for infants and toddlers? Is it universal preschool for three or four year olds? What does quality mean for infants and toddlers?  What does quality mean for preschool classrooms?

It is not an easy task!  

Callers missed this message completely.  Calls were about their own personal struggles about finding a nanny or an au pair. One caller even advocated for all mothers to stay home to ensure their infants and toddlers get the quality care they need.

How does a conversation about access to affordable, quality child care for all almost turn into a show about nannies?

Whether you are poor or rich, we all need access to quality care.  We all need opportunities to ensure children are afforded the opportunities they need, whether it is child care or preschool.

I could not find quality care for my children in Arlington. I was absolutely shocked that after spending thousands of dollars in application fees, and waiting for months, I never found a slot for my five-year old in either a child care or preschool program.

It simply brought more meaning to the work I was doing.  I had the information and the resources and still struggled to find the care I hoped for for my daughter and son.

And the children in impoverished communities needed far more support than I did.

I absolutely want more support for working middle class families, but the current debate is not about me. The debate we are engaged in is for the children who need it most! 

There are plenty of children whose parents do not have the means or the knowledge that early education is critically important to their children’s long-term growth and development.  By the time a child is three, he/she has grown dramatically by producing billions of cells and hundreds of trillions of connections, or synapses, between these cells.  We know enough from the research that a young child’s brain takes years to complete, but providers and parents can ensure children get off to a right start to establish patterns for life-long learning.

Why should we all care about the current debate for higher quality early care and education, including child care?

• An increasing numbers of children, including infants and toddlers, spend hours each day in various arrangements because their parents work or attend school;
• Research has shown that in the majority of infant care arrangements in the U.S., children are not talked to and played with enough, and they do not have the opportunity to form the kind of comfortable, secure relationships with a caregiver who will promote their healthy emotional development;
• Parents should be given information about how to choose quality care for their children;
• Special attention should be given to the development and enforcement of standards that promote high-quality care, including adequate professional development for caregivers, low child-to-teacher ratios, and small group sizes; and,
• Finally, child care reimbursement rates for families moving from welfare to work must be high enough to fund well-trained staff who can deliver developmentally appropriate care and education.

HyeSook Chung is Program Officer for Early Care and Education at The Women’s Foundation.

When I was honored with an invitation to speak at the Stepping Stones Research Briefing, no one told me I’d have to figure out what I was going to talk about a week in advance (so that I could write a preview for this blog).

How unfair is that?

Of course, it was good to push me to start thinking about what I would share from the DC Fiscal Policy Institute’s recent research —what things are likely to be most interesting and relevant to you all.

So here is a preview of what you will hear from me on May 20.

I will start by exploring some recent economic indicators for the District of Columbia, including food stamp caseloads and unemployment. They are rising sharply, of course, which means poverty is on the rise, too.

The bad economic news this year comes on the heels of an “economic recovery,” during which poverty failed to decline in DC.  In fact, the number of poor residents rose through much of the early 2000s, even though the city was gaining jobs and residents and the real estate market was booming.

I will then talk about two pieces of upcoming DCFPI research. 

One focuses on the demographics of poor D.C. residents.  Not surprisingly, women-headed families with children face high poverty rates and represent a large share of D.C.’s low-income population, which means that D.C. cannot tackle poverty successfully without focusing on this group.  Our research finds that many of these single women with children are not working but that even when they have a job — even a full-time job — they earn so little that many remain poor.

A second DCFPI research project is based on focus groups we held last year with DC TANF recipients. Those conversations revealed that DC’s TANF cash benefits are inadequate to meet even the bare necessities, that the program’s employment preparation services or generally poor quality, and that TANF recipients have limited access to services that address personal barriers, despite policies on paper that suggest these services are available.

I look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday at the 2009 Stepping Stones Research Briefing!

Please R.S.V.P. here.

Then help us spread the word. We have an Event, "2009 Stepping Stones Research Briefing," on Facebook. We’re also on Twitter @TheWomensFndtn.

Ed Lazere is the Executive Director of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute.

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, a national foundation-led initiative, is excited to collaborate with Washington Area Women’s Foundation to bring you the latest news and analysis on women and poverty.

Spotlight is the go-to site for news and ideas about fighting poverty.

For daily updates and links to past articles, check out “Women and Poverty.” It’s a new section of our site with a comprehensive collection of recent news and analysis on women and poverty.

Along with these daily updates, continue to visit TheWomensFoundation.org for our weekly rundown of the top news stories on women and poverty every Friday.

Here’s this week’s news:

• An editorial appearing in the Chicago Sun Times argues that more support for single moms will benefit the next generation.

• The Washington Times profiles a Washington, D.C. resident who is known for her charity work with low-income mothers.

• In an op-ed for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, a contributor in favor of Notre Dame’s controversial invitation to President Obama argues that he disapproves of bishops’ support of pro-life candidates, which he believes has led to a widening of the gap between rich and poor.

• As reported in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, several clinics for low-income patients, including a women and children’s center, are slated to close in Georgia.

• The Detroit News reports that Michigan’s cuts of certain programs may hurt its chances of receiving federal matching funds allocated to low-income mothers and pregnant women.

• A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel commentary on a low-income clinic struggling to stay open notes that most of its clientele is single mothers and their children.

• A USA Today piece on stimulus funds going to Indian tribes notes the benefits it will provide to people like Naomi Sitting Bear, a mother living with her family in dilapidated housing, as well its support for domestic violence programs.

• A Chicago Tribune piece on new housing for homeless and low-income residents interviews a woman, recently released from jail, who believes that the housing will provide her with new stability and opportunities.

• The Miami Herald reports on a disabled woman who was given housing from Habitat for Humanity on Mother’s Day.

• The Governor of Rhode Island has proposed a plan that would cut state aid to low-income pregnant women, as noted by the Associated Press.

To learn more about Spotlight, visit www.spotlightonpoverty.org.  To sign up for our weekly updates with the latest news, opinion and research from around the country, click here.

The Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity Team

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity is a foundation-led, non-partisan initiative aimed at ensuring that our political leaders take significant actions to reduce poverty and increase opportunity in the United States. We bring together diverse perspectives from the political, policy, advocacy and foundation communities to engage in an ongoing dialogue focused on finding genuine solutions to the economic hardship confronting millions of Americans.

A woman accuses an older, politically powerful man of raping her.  He denies the charges, and offers to pay her off to drop them. When she persists, his defense lawyers put her sexual history on trial, including her experience of child sexual assault. They accuse her of lying about being a lesbian. They add that her behavior, including sending him text messages and wearing revealing clothing, were an invitation for sex. Supporters of the perpetrator stand outside the courthouse with signs saying, “How much did they pay you, bitch?” He is acquitted and returns to his everyday life. She and her family are forced to relocate due to death threats.  Source.

It could be a snapshot from anywhere in the U.S., but this particular scene unfolded in South Africa between 2004 and 2006, and the accused was Jacob Zuma, who was inaugurated last week as South Africa’s new President.

This trial had another unfortunate twist: the accuser, nicknamed Khwezi (star) by her supporters, was HIV positive.  Despite his previous role as head of South Africa’s National AIDS Council, when asked the (irrelevant) question of whether he was worried about contracting HIV, Mr. Zuma testified that, "Chances were very slim you could get the disease” from having unprotected sex with an HIV positive woman, and that he showered after having sex with her to "minimize the risk of contracting the disease," grossly misleading statements that have perpetuated myths and possibly cost lives.

Despite a persistent cloud of scandal, Jacob Zuma has remained popular in South Africa due to his ties to Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid movement, his role as the country’s first post-apartheid Zulu leader, and what many describe as his charisma.

Regardless of the verdict – or whether it was rendered after a fair trial – Mr. Zuma’s response to the charges provide alarming evidence of how he will approach South Africa’s women – and particularly the growing pandemic of violence against women – during his term. Also disturbing is the lack of attention in domestic and international media to the rape accusation, Zuma’s response, and its implications.

South Africa has been called the rape capital of the world, with an estimated half a million women raped every year. It is also home to the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world – approximately six million.

So why hasn’t Zuma’s complicity in perpetuating these twin pandemics prevented him from assuming leadership?

The short answer is democracy, and by all accounts this was a fair election. In fact, the African National Congress – Zuma’s party – won by nearly 50 percentage points. But as advocates of women’s health and empowerment in Washington, D.C., we should be concerned about the more difficult answer.

Because the women of D.C. are also suffering from the twin pandemics of violence and HIV/AIDS.

Survivor blaming at home

Recent surveys indicate that between 10-15 percent of women in the U.S. are raped in their lifetimes, while an additional three percent of women report surviving attempted rape (stats here and here).  This amounts to a woman being raped every two minutes in the U.S.

The statistics on sexual assault in D.C. are much harder to come by. 

According to the DC Metropolitan Police Department, there were 375 reported cases of sexual assault in 2008. 

But Denise Snyder, Executive Director of the DC Rape Crisis Center (DCRCC), puts this statistic in perspective, explaining, “The general belief is that about 10 percent of rape survivors ever report the incident to police, so if you multiply this number by 10, you are probably getting closer to the truth in D.C.”

DCRCC’s rape crisis hotline received over 3,200 calls during the 2007-2008 fiscal year, but Snyder points out that crisis hotlines, “are not even the primary contact for most rape survivors, who are more likely to tell their family and friends after an incident occurs.”

There are many reasons for the overwhelming failure to prevent and address sexual violence globally, in the U.S., and in D.C. Unfortunately one of the most important reasons might be that policy-makers – and the public in general – just don’t believe its happening.

Survivor blaming is a term used by advocates and researchers working to combat sexual violence to describe the tendency – of law enforcement agencies, legal systems, and even family, friends and acquaintances – to doubt or blame the survivor of sexual violence.

In reality, it is very rare for a woman or man to lie about being raped. The Rape Crisis Federation of Europe estimates that false reports of rape occur at the same rate as other crimes – only about two percent of the time, which means that 98 out of 100 women and men are telling the truth when they say they were raped.  And it makes sense, given the continued re-traumatization that survivors must undergo when they do come forward, as evidenced by Jacob Zuma and his supporters’ treatment of Khwezi.

As a former volunteer hotline and hospital counselor for the DC Rape Crisis Center, I witnessed the devastating impact of survivor blaming on women and men in D.C. who were grappling with their experiences of sexual violence. The frequency with which I heard phrases such as, “Thank you for believing me”, or “Why did this happen to me?” underlined the all too common experience of disclosing an incident of sexual violence only to be met with doubt and blame.

A recent study conducted with U.S. college students found that negative social reactions (e.g. blame, stigmatization) of family members and friends toward a rape survivor reduced other people’s support, reduced blame for the perpetrator, and reduced sympathy for rape survivors in general.  The same study found that people were more likely to blame survivors of date rape than stranger rape, and that men were more likely to sympathize with the perpetrator than the rape survivor.

Another recent study, "Effects of Offender Motivation, Victim Gender, and Participant Gender on Perceptions of Rape Victims and Offenders"– also conducted with U.S. college students – found that participants were less likely to describe an event as rape and more likely to blame the victim when they were told the perpetrator’s motivation was sexual rather than violent.

Our tendency toward survivor blaming – often relieving the perpetrator of responsibility – goes a long way in explaining why so few incidents of sexual assault are ever reported to police.
As a rape crisis counselor, I was also responsible for having the difficult conversation with survivors about whether it was worth pressing charges, given the fact that only six percent of rapists ever spend a day in jail, and the inevitable negative impact on her or his life, including exposure of their sexual history and other destructive attempts by the perpetrator’s defenders to call their character into question.

Allowing this cycle of victimization to continue for survivors of sexual violence is unacceptable in itself.

More broadly, when survivors can’t come forward to a supportive and empowering environment, we as a community lose the opportunity to provide them with needed services, identify and convict rapists, and prevent sexual violence in the future.

So if we are serious about combating sexual violence, if we do not want to see one out of six women in the next generation spend their lives trying to recover from this trauma, then our first step must be to start believing the survivors.

Unfortunately, they are telling the truth.

As Khwezi insisted after (now President) Zuma was acquitted, “I am not mad. I am not incapable of understanding the difference between consensual and non-consensual sex. The fact that I have been raped multiple times does not make me mad.  It means there is something very wrong with our world and our society.

Stephanie Psaki has an MPh from the Harvard School of Public Health. In 2007, she spent two months in Durban, South Africa conducting research on women’s empowerment and sexual partnering behavior among university students. She also had the privilege of volunteering for the DC Rape Crisis Center, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation, as a hotline and hospital counselor from 2004 to 2006.

Low-income families can face numerous challenges as they work toward stable and gainful employment. Child care subsidies are designed to help them overcome one major barrier they face—affording child care for their children—as they seek to become or remain employed.

Research suggests that subsidies can play an important role in this effort, as subsidy use is associated with higher rates of employment and better employment outcomes.

As such, child care subsidies—mostly funded through the federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) with related state funds, and funds that states allocate from their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs—are a key public investment in a safety net for America’s working families, and for families moving from welfare to work.

As highlighted in previous Urban Institute studies, however, despite the importance of subsidies for low-income families, only some families that are eligible for services receive assistance.  This disparity results from a number of factors, including insufficient funding in some states to serve all families that want services, as well as some families not wanting or needing assistance.

Yet, it appears that even when funds are available, some eligible families that want subsidies do not receive them, families that do receive them often stay on subsidies for relatively short periods, and some families that do not stay in the program appear to remain eligible even after they leave.

While, again, multiple factors likely contribute to these patterns, research suggests that subsidy policies and practices can contribute to whether some eligible families receive subsidies in the first place, as well as whether eligible families that receive subsidies are able to retain them over time. These include policies and practices in areas such as what families must do to apply for subsidies, to recertify their eligibility, and to report changes in circumstances that may alter their eligibility, as well as how often families must take these steps; how easy or difficult their interactions are with the subsidy agency; and, how agencies define eligibility when families experience changes in their circumstances. 

The growing understanding of the importance of these issues has led states and localities to focus more on identifying ways to improve their services and design their programs to make it both easier for eligible families to receive services in the first place and to keep them once they receive them.

My presentation at the researching briefing on May 20 will focus on highlighting a number of these strategies. 

In addition to making processes easier for parents, several strategies appear to help administrators meet other critical program goals, such as reducing staff workload, keeping program costs down, and reducing improper payments. 

Some strategies that better support parents—for example, decreasing paperwork, simplifying interactions with parents, reducing inadvertent terminations or needless churning of clients—can also minimize unnecessary procedures that result in administrative costs.

Finally, strategies that help subsidized families retain subsidies also seem likely to affect CCDF program goals to support child development.  While low-income families on subsidies may change providers while in the system, inadvertent terminations of subsidies can mean at least some children experience disruptions in their care arrangements that would not have otherwise occurred. Given the central role that having a stable relationship with a loving caregiver has on a child’s well-being, minimizing those disruptions is clearly important for child development goals as well.

Join me when I present and discuss more on this issue at The Women’s Foundation’s 2009 Stepping Stones Research Briefing on Wednesday, May 20 from 8:30 a.m. to noon at the Katharine Graham Conference Center of the Urban Institute at 2100 M Street, NW on the 5th Floor.   A light breakfast will be provided.

Please RSVP here.

Then help us spread the word. We have an Event, "2009 Stepping Stones Research Briefing," on Facebook.  We’re also on Twitter @TheWomensFndtn.

Gina Adams is a researcher with The Urban Insitute, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation and co-sponsor of the Stepping Stones Research Briefing.

Thanks to the support and collaboration of Washington Area Women’s Foundation, the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) has moved quickly ahead in the area of communications capacity over the past year.

CARECEN provides direct housing counseling and legal services, as well as citizenship education and community economic development to 8,000 area Latino residents per year, while also reaching thousands more through outreach efforts.

An Open Door Capacity Fund grant in 2008-2009 provided a key source of support needed to allow CARECEN to focus on communications as a priority.  In May 2008, CARECEN met with Lisa Kays, The Women’s Foundation’s Director of Communications, to talk about emerging strategies for enhancing communications in nonprofit organizations, and CARECEN also participated in the highly informative July 2008 workshop on “Communications and New Media” put on by The Women’s Foundation. 

Over the past year, Mi-Young Kim, an extraordinarily dedicated volunteer skilled at Web site design, worked closely with Ana Negoescu, Director of the Citizenship Program, to redesign our Web site.

CARECEN also embraced e-communications, and starting in February 2009 launched a monthly e-newsletter for a community of 1,000+ friends and supporters, including more than 100 volunteers who contribute annually to the organization.

With artwork by Salvadoran-American artist Hugo Bonilla, the new Website is designed to reflect the community CARECEN serves, consistent with the organization’s mission and cultural heritage.  Still a work in progress, it aims to help people understand the historical roots of CARECEN as a community-based organization dedicated to serving the Latino immigrant community.  It also encourages interested constituents to participate in educational activities and advocacy efforts.  In addition to providing the opportunity to recognize and honor our community partners, sponsors and supporters, the site focuses on helping members, volunteers, and friends stay updated on CARECEN as well as key issues such as immigration reform.

In the area of fundraising, in addition to the Website, CARECEN is also adopting Web2.0 generation tools such as Facebook and Change.org as a way of engaging new supporters and facilitating awareness of CARECEN, not to mention the ability to recognize and thank donors.

These low-cost communications and outreach strategies, and the ability to assemble lists of supporters with simple tools such as Constant Contact, help in building visibility of the work of community-based organizations like CARECEN. 

Still, our challenges continue, particularly in the realm of bilingual communications, given that Spanish is the first language for the majority of our constituents. 

Also, we cannot forget that many Latino area residents, particularly adults, lack easy access to the Internet, a fundamental tool in accessing employment and services, and in resolving basic financial issues.

Latina women, a vital force in our community, are active participants in CARECEN programs and activities.  Women are frequently leaders in local tenant associations, and are often the first in their families to pursue citizenship.

The support of The Women’s Foundation helps to provide more opportunities for empowering women, strengthening families, and building communities in our region.

Hilary Burger is Director of Development at the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN), a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation.