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Story October 17, 2019

Around the World, Women Are Taking Charge of Their Future

Country:

France India Jordan Kenya United states

Author:

Lynn Johnson
Grantee

Science Leader, Kenya: CEO, conservationist, advocate: Paula Kahumbu runs the Kenyan conservation group WildlifeDirect. Kahumbu describes to city teenagers visiting Nairobi National Park the interplay between species: how ants help a native acacia tree defend itself against herbivores such as giraffes and rhinos. Image by Lynn Johnson. Kenya, 2019.

English

In spite of gender and economic disparity, women are often the innovators and change makers that...

Lynn Johnson
Grantee

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Animal Tracker, Kenya: A mother of three at 23, Mpayon Loboitong’o herds her family’s goats on her own; after her husband left to find work in Nairobi, she was told he’d been killed there. Her other full-time job: charting animal movements for Save the Elephants. For a monthly salary she and eight other women traverse the bush, unarmed, amid elephants, lions, and African buffalo. “I do this work so my kids don’t go to bed hungry,” she says. Image by Lynn Johnson. Kenya, 2019.

Peace Advocate, France: When a radicalized Muslim went on a 2012 killing rampage in his hometown of Toulouse, the first victim was also Muslim: a paratrooper named Imad Ibn Ziaten, targeted for his service to France. In her grief, his mother, Latifa Ibn Ziaten, began a campaign for la jeunesse et la paix, youth and peace, and named it for her son. A Moroccan immigrant, Ibn Ziaten—here reading a book aloud in her grandson’s bedroom—visits schools and prisons, pleading for mutual understanding. “Look into people’s eyes and smile,” she says. “And they will come to you.” Image by Lynn Johnson. France, 2019.

Defiant Sisters, India: Their superiors keep pressuring them to keep quiet and stop making trouble, but they refuse. When a nun in Kerala told church leaders multiple times that a bishop had raped her repeatedly, nothing happened, so she turned to the police. Months later, in September 2018, these fellow nuns joined a two-week protest outside the Kerala High Court. The bishop, who maintains his innocence, eventually was arrested. From left: Sisters Alphy, Nina Rose, Ancitta, Anupama, and Josephine. Instead of supporting the nuns, the church cut off the protesting nuns’ monthly allowance. Image by Lynn Johnson. India, 2019.

Intrepid Voters, India: Poll station helpers work a check-in table in Bengaluru during India’s 2019 general election. The 1950 Constitution of India, the former British colony’s founding national document, ensures suffrage to every adult Indian citizen regardless of “religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth.” From the launch of the modern republic, in other words, Indian women have had the vote—and they exercise it. Image by Lynn Johnson. India, 2019.

Intrepid Voters, India: At another polling station, women show off their fingers after casting their ballots; election officials mark voters’ nails with indelible ink in an effort to prevent repeats. Women still make up only 14 percent of the nation’s parliament, but they are enthusiastic voters. With all-women-staffed polling stations in every parliamentary district, some states report more women than men turning out on election days. Image by Lynn Johnson. India, 2019.

Madame Mayor, France: When Marième Tamata-Varin was encouraged in 2014 to run for mayor of the village of Yèbles, her two children were bullied and she was subjected to racist and anti-Muslim insults—the first time in her life, says the Mauritanian immigrant, that she had felt labeled “other.” But she won, becoming France’s first black Muslim woman mayor. From town hall chambers dignified by a bust of Marianne, the symbolic figure evoking republican France, Tamata-Varin creatively raised money, including a crowdfunding campaign, for a new school building and other civic improvements. Image by Lynn Johnson. France, 2019.

Fashion Trailblazer, France: Christian Dior artistic director Maria Grazia Chiuri breaks up in laughter as she and the couture studio head wrangle an elaborate cape. Chiuri’s 2016 appointment to the most prestigious position at Dior set off alerts in the fashion world: In its 72 years as a leading couture house, Dior had never before put a woman in charge. Chiuri has used fashion to promote women’s rights and issues; she’s dressed runway models in shirts saying “Sisterhood is powerful” and “We should all be feminists.” Image by Lynn Johnson. France, 2019.

Healer, France: An 11th-century monastery in Provence, St. Paul de Mausole, also houses a historic psychiatric facility; Vincent van Gogh painted while confined there. Art therapist Anik Bottichio heads the art studio at St. Paul for troubled and traumatized women—“to help them become visible,” she says, “first to themselves and then to the outside.” Image by Lynn Johnson. France, 2019.

Healer, France: “Lullaby Wolf” is the signature on each of the works Hélèn Duval paints while in treatment at St. Paul de Mausole. Patients live at the monastery while their recovery is under way; Duval described herself as suicidal before she arrived. Signing one’s work, she says—declaring an identity—is a vital part of the healing process. Image by Lynn Johnson. France, 2019.

Healer, France: A longtime dancer, teacher, and choreographer, Andrea Perekovic is working at the St. Paul asylum to quiet her anxiety and destructive thoughts. Painting helps manage her demons, she says, giving her special solace when she wakes in the middle of the night. “I am here to find protection,” Perekovic says. “To find a balance.” Image by Lynn Johnson. France, 2019.

Astrophysicist, United States: Though her body looked male, her childhood self-portraits showed a girl named Rebecca. A developer of an imaging tool that searches for planets outside our solar system for California’s Palomar Hale Telescope, Rebecca Oppenheimer avoids “transition” as a label for her public emergence in 2014: “I like to say I stopped pretending to be a boy.” Image by Lynn Johnson. United States, 2019.

Home Weaver, Jordan: Abeer Seikaly’s term for her mix of architecture, technology, and art: “cultural producer.” As investors explore her plans for fabric solar-powered tent homes for refugees, Seikaly, at left, is studying building possibilities for woven goat hair yarn, a traditional Bedouin material. Um Abdullah, a farmworker Seikaly hired as a spinner, shows what’s becoming of the last goat hair Seikaly delivered. “I need to get a feel for it,” Seikaly says. “There’s so much to be learned from these women.” Image by Lynn Johnson. Jordan, 2019.

Sustainable Farmer, Jordan: Her face scorched by sun as she was working her own land, Elham Abbadi leads a group of Jordanian farming women intent on transforming their village into a sustainable and naturally resilient permaculture landscape, as well as creating income-generating enterprises. With help from her mother and a cousin, Abbadi draws from many generations of family tradition by saving seeds, planting berries, and encouraging other farmers to cultivate organically. Image by Lynn Johnson. Jordan, 2019.

Migrant Laborer, Jordan: Like many nations (including the U.S.), Jordan relies on farm and domestic workers from poorer places. This field laborer, wrapped for protection against sun and abrasive plants, came to Jordan from Morocco; abandoned by her husband, she has four small children to support. Local organizers are trying to combat abuse and exploitation of working migrants. Image by Lynn Johnson. Jordan, 2019.

Accessibility Champion, Jordan: At 28, after a decade as Jordan’s biggest voice in accessibility, Aya Aghabi passed away in August 2019. Reliant on a wheelchair after a car accident left her with a spinal cord injury, Aghabi did graduate work in Berkeley, California, an early disability rights hub—and discovered the independence possible for people in wheelchairs. In a land where so much is difficult to navigate for the disabled—such as Amman’s Temple of Hercules, shown here in May—she became a full-time mobility consultant and launched the website Accessible Jordan. Her work continues to provide online guides for disabled Jordanians and tourists to explore the nation’s streets and prized cultural destinations. Image by Lynn Johnson. Jordan, 2019.

Science Leader, Kenya: CEO, conservationist, advocate: Paula Kahumbu runs the Kenyan conservation group WildlifeDirect. Kahumbu describes to city teenagers visiting Nairobi National Park the interplay between species: how ants help a native acacia tree defend itself against herbivores such as giraffes and rhinos. Image by Lynn Johnson. Kenya, 2019.

Community Activist, Kenya: After her family accepted her ardor for learning, Elizabeth Pantoren earned a doctorate and became an officer for a conservancy group and a champion of girls’ independence. Today’s exhortation, as she shows a Karare class a reusable sanitary pad holder: No girl should ever have to miss school because of her period. Image by Lynn Johnson. Kenya, 2019.

Village Head, India: This north Indian village’s sarpanch—elected leader, local-national government liaison, and chief dispute-resolver—is 43-year-old Chhavi Rajawat, here standing atop a school under renovation. Rajawat, who earned a business management degree, pushes girls in this deeply traditional region to pursue an education, and their families to support it. “I am a daughter of this village,” she says. Image by Lynn Johnson. India, 2019.

Culinary Warrior, United States: A luminary in the high-testosterone restaurant world (she’s the only woman in the U.S. ever awarded three Michelin stars), San Francisco chef Dominique Crenn made what she says seemed the obvious decision after her invasive breast cancer diagnosis this spring: She went public with it. “For all the women who have been on this journey before me and now with me, my heart is with you,” Crenn wrote her 270,000 Instagram followers. The answering roar of love and accolades is still carrying her through. “Guess what? I’m strong,” she says. “Not everything is happy, you know? But I’m very thankful and very grateful. Being in the public eye was never my main thing. My main thing is always to fight the fight.” Image by Lynn Johnson. United States, 2019.

Theresa Kachindamoto remembers the first child marriage she ended, just days after she became the first female paramount chief of her southern Ngoni people in Malawi. In Dedza district, southeast of the capital, Lilongwe, she'd walked past a group of girls and boys playing soccer, a common sight, but then one of the girls stepped away from the game to breastfeed a baby.

Read the full story on the National Geographic website.