These women bring new meaning to term breadwinners!

For this post, we take you south of the border to El Salvador, a country where many women are single moms, left behind by husbands who emigrated, died or abandoned them. They could simply languish there, like others begging for food for their children’s survival. But they’ve chosen instead to show what girls can do with some ingenuity (and a little help from their friends).

Abandonment and poverty? Not for them!

I was first introduced to these women and their story through my affiliation and work with the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in Wisconsin. One of the sisters lives in Central America where she’s made a ministry of introducing tourists to real life in the region through a program called GATE, Global Awareness Through Experience.

She’s become somewhat of a local through her years there and has grown close to a couple women in San Miguelito, Sonsanate, enterprising women who refused to accept their abandonment and poverty.

Becoming the breadwinners.

Using ovens on an outside porch and mixers in the hallway of a home, these women ran a makeshift bakery in an attempt to fill a need for bread for their community and income for their families. It was tough-going and yielded limited income.

Seeing their determined spirit, the sister shared their story with others—tourists and friends—and donations started coming in. After just a couple months, and a small grant the sister and I obtained for them, the El Salvadoran women had accumulated $3,850. They turned that modest amount into the Maura Clark Bakery, a bona fide business that has grown now to employ more than a dozen women in the rural village.

That may seem a small thing, but these women, many of whom were unemployed, are projected to earn between $35 and $40 a week through sales. To give you a point of reference, men in the village earn an average of $23 per week.

Girls SO can….

These women are changing their world, moving from a position of powerlessness to strength and serving as a role model for other women.

Their story left me wondering, what could $100 here or there do for others around us? How could a few hours of our time change the future? It’s been said that it takes a village. Perhaps all it really takes is a little help from our girlfriends.

Madalene Buelow is a covenant affiliate with the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration where she also serves as the director of development and planned giving. A mother of two grown daughters, she believes wholeheartedly in girl power and spends her spare time volunteering to show what girls CAN do.