WOMEN FOR WOMEN
“I don’t have a lot, but I want to help,” Mariama Hadiah and her sister Honorata Kizende (left). They met at the 2008 Women for Women International gala in New York.
Honorata Kizende’s past is marked by incredible hardship, horrific violence, social isolation, and near death destruction. And yet, it is also an account of survival, strength, and testimony to human strength.
At the 2008 Women for Women International awards gala in New York almost 800 guests celebrated Honorata, a Congolese rape survivor and graduate of the organization’s program in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She received this year’s Woman of the World Award for her courage and advocacy on behalf of women survivors of war.
“All of us are humbled while we stand in front of you. You have taught us all and you have taught me about courage and resilience. And if Honorata can stand up after going through what she has gone through, who are we not to?” said Zainab Salbi, Founder of Women for Women International, after handing the award to Honorata.
Honorata had been a sex slave and kept in captivity by armed militias in eastern Congo for almost a year. She was repeatedly gang-raped in public. After she escaped, the stigma of rape made her family reject her. Alone and destitute she found refuge in a friend’s house and was raped again when armed men looted the property. This time her daughter had to watch.
Today Honorata Kizende runs a small tie-die business with a group of women who pooled their resources. And she has decided to break the silence. Honorata is advocating for an end to sexual violence and calls on members of her community to restore the rights of women who have gone through rape and stigmatization.
Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO, Lloyd C. Blankfein presented Honorata with a scholarship for a six week entrepreneurship course at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
“We know that when you invest in women, we transform not only the person, but also families, communities and, ultimately, countries. It is that multiplier effect that we believe is fundamental to long term, sustained economic growth,” Blankfein told the audience before handing the scholarship to Honorata Kizende.
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