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Dear Womensphere Community,
I am so thrilled and excited to meet many of you this weekend at the Emerging Leaders Summit. Before we meet, I’d love to take a moment and tell you a bit about my story, and the story of my organization: Shining Hope for Communities.
When I was twenty-one-years old and a junior at Wesleyan University I studied abroad in Nairobi, Kenya. In Kenya I met a young man named Kennedy Odede who lived in Kibera, Africa’s largest slum, and was dedicated to changing the position of women in his community. Just to give you a picture, Kibera is home to approximately 1.5 million people who live in an area the size of central park without resources such as schools, roads, or a sanitation system of any kind. In these deplorable conditions one in five children do not live to see their fifth birthday. Approximately 66% of girls are forced to trade their bodies for food, simply to survive. Amidst this devastation, Kennedy was inspired by the plight of his own mother. With his first extra money, twenty cents, he bought a soccer ball and started a grassroots organization called Shining Hope for Community (SHOFCO) that provides education, skill training, and support to thousands of the slum’s residents.
In 2007, I moved into the Kibera slum and became a part of this community while I worked with members of SHOFCO’s youth group to create a play about life in extreme poverty. Living in Kibera I was especially inspired by the friendships I formed, one in particular with a young woman named Cathy. Cathy was curious and wanted to learn about the world. She got a sponsor to help her pay school fees, but her mother burned her belongings because he was angry that she was not doing enough housework. Cathy moved in with her father who abused and impregnated her. She was then almost killed by a man who beat her because she asked him to wear a condom. After living and working in Kibera, I knew that I wanted a meaningful role in this community, and I saw that women are a source of tremendous potential for change.
In 2009, Kennedy and I expanded Shining Hope for Communities when we started The Kibera School for Girls, the slum’s first free school for girls. The school now educates 67 of Kibera’s most needy and vulnerable students, providing them with a superior education, daily nourishment, uniforms, school supplies, and a refuge from rape and abuse.
At Shining Hope for Communities we have further developed an innovative, two-step community-driven model to combat gender inequality and extreme poverty. We link free schools for girls to holistic community centers that provide residents with the most essential services unavailable elsewhere. Our model provides the community-at-large with desperately needed services including a newly opened health clinic, library, job training, cyber café, clean toilets, and economic development initiatives. The tangible link between a school for girls and desperately needed community services for all creates a unique social incentive structure, as the community learns to associate desperately needed services with an institution dedicated to girls' education, increasing the value placed on women.
I so look forward to speaking and sharing more at the Emerging Leaders Summit on Saturday. There are so few communities of strong women in the world. Such networks between readers like you, and the women my organization serves are incredibly important to spark and sustain much need change in this world.
See you soon!
-Jessica
PS—to learn more visit www.shininghopeforcommunities.org or follow us on twitter: hope2shine.
For over two decades, Analisa Balares has been committed to women’s leadership development, entrepreneurship, innovation, sustainable development, and education. She has produced, directed, and co-produced over 100 conferences, summits, events, and media on these themes, with 12 of these conferences and forums through Womensphere.
In the summer of 2007, Analisa founded Womensphere, a unique global leadership community and independent media company that inspires, empowers, connects, and unites women leaders, innovators, entrepreneurs, policymakers, scientists, artists, explorers, and women who are creating development and pioneering new trails across all fields and disciplines. In the last three years, as the US and global economies went through crises and upheaval, Analisa and the leadership of the Womensphere Team brought together a community of over 11,000 women leaders, building one of the most powerful new platforms for emerging women leaders, and for women leaders across all fields.
Prior to Womensphere, Analisa launched her career in the Goldman Sachs High Technology Investment Banking group, where she helped execute over $1.5 billion in IPOs, corporate financings, and mergers and acquisitions for companies like open source software leader Red Hat and communications leader Nokia. Her professional experience includes working for Milestone Capital Management, Morgan Stanley’s Energy Investment Banking Group, the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, and the Japan External Trade Organization.
Analisa holds an MBA from Harvard Business School; a BA in Economics & Mathematics cum laude from Mount Holyoke College; and an International Baccalaureate Diploma from Lester Pearson United World College of the Pacific in Canada. While at Harvard Business School, Analisa founded and co-led the non-profit Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN), and served as a President of the HBS Entrepreneurship Club, and Debate Coach/Team Co-Captain of the HBS Debate Team.
Following business school, Analisa joined Microsoft as Global Marketing Manager for Microsoft’s blogging and social networking service, where she managed the global marketing launch of Windows Live Spaces in over 30 countries, and led the strategy and execution of Spaces projects around branding, partnerships, events, and online community development. She managed Spaces’ internal partnerships with MSN Entertainment and XBox, and external partnerships with NGOs (Global Fund for Women, Earth Day Network), media companies (ABC, Sundance Channel), and independent music/film/TV festivals (SXSW, MethodFest Film Festival, New York TV Festival).
A global citizen, Analisa’s lifework and inspiration to have impact emerged early: In her teens, she led a team of students pioneering innovative work on wastewater pollution treatment, recycling, and alternative energy production, efforts which won recognition and the Philippine Shell Petroleum Company‘s Outstanding Junior Scientist Award for three consecutive years. She was elected Senate President of the 1st Philippine Youth Environment Congress, where she led drafting the Philippine Youth Environment and Sustainable Development Policy Proposal for the UN Earth Summit in Brazil. That year, she was elected Youth Mayor of Manila City, where she led the passing of 18 Executive Orders into laws to improve the community, education, and environment of Manila. As a Canadian Government scholar to the Lester Pearson United World College in British Columbia, she gave voice to the importance of children’s rights while on the Steering Committee of Canada’s First International Conference on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child held in Vancouver.
In 1999, Analisa founded The Lyons Network, a leadership and career mentoring organization for young women, and for a decade, Analisa co-led the organization of regional conferences on leadership, innovation, and entrepreneurship for young women in New England, reaching several thousand young women in the last decade.
Analisa was recently selected as Fearless Woman of the Year 2010 by The Fearless Factor in New York City. Analisa was chosen by the New Leaders Council as one of its 40 Under 40 New Leaders in the United States, and recognized as one of the 100 Most Influential Filipinas in America by the US Filipina Women’s Network. Analisa was also recognized by CBS Radio/1010Wins as its Tomorrow’s Newsmaker Award Winner for Business.
