Tamsin Scurfield: Celebrating Opportunity's Women Leaders this International Women's Day
The theme of this year's International Women's Day is #AccelerateAction and this year, we celebrate the incredible women leaders at Opportunity International. From CEOs and Directors to those spearheading our refugee initiatives, we are fortunate to have bold, intelligent, and empathetic women guiding our organisation.
Meet Tamsin, Head of Refugee Finance
Tamsin has led our refugee strategy since we began our work with refugees in Uganda in 2018. As Head of Refugee Finance, she provides leadership to ensure the program delivers scalable and inclusive financial services to Refugees and host communities.
Below, Tamsin shares her reflections on International Women's Day and how as an organisation we can #AccelerateAction for women:
What does International Women's Day mean to you?
It genuinely disturbs me that in the 21st century, women still face enormous discrimination socially, politically and economically. Did you know that in only 10 countries worldwide do women have the same legal rights as men, and the UK is not one of those? To me, International Women's Day is not a celebration, more a call to act – to raise awareness about gender equality and advocate for women’s rights worldwide.
Thinking about inspiring people who empower women, who inspires you and why?
It's our clients who play multiple roles as mothers, wives, farmers and businesswomen, and who balance these roles and the social expectations they come with, with acceptance and grace whilst working hard to support themselves and their families.
How are we #AcceleratingAction as an organisation to empower women in Africa?
When I joined Opportunity in 2015, we started by just targeting women to make sure we had 50:50 representation of men and women in our programmes. Since then, we’ve come to understand we need to go beyond just targeting to intentional programming that integrates women’s access, roles, time, abilities and perspectives.
How does your role facilitate empowering women?
I’ve led on an Agriculture Finance gender strategy which is now being implemented across all Opportunity International AgFinance's work. But for me, where I see Opportunity leading in women’s empowerment has been the gender mindset training we do with our staff, creating a learning environment where we bring ourselves, our norms and values to the table. We’ve learnt in women’s empowerment that if our own staff don’t understand why its important and live it out themselves, we can only go so far in meeting our objectives.
Why is it so important to empower the women in our programmes?
So many reasons! In short, it's simply about justice and fairness. Ensuring women are afforded the same opportunities as men to lead productive lives free from limiting barriers, stigma and discrimination, and that they are able to provide for themselves and their families. As global inequalities and the gap between the haves and the have-nots increases, we can imagine in time this leading to a more just, equitable and fair society.
What changes do you see to communities after a woman has been given the skills and training?
It’s like a light bulb moment. It’s when a husband and wife thought the woman could not negotiate a rate and sell their produce at the market, and after the training they realise that she can. It’s when a woman who thought she had nothing to offer, who was fearful to run a business or who just believed she couldn’t do anything, that contributed productivity to their farms and homes, realise that she can!
If you are inspired this and want to help us reach more women this International Women's Day, you can donate by clicking here.
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