By Judi Marraccini / 2026 Conference Chair
As Conference Chair, I had been introduced to many exhibitors before the conference.
My plan is to introduce you to some of them and review their organization in the next few FL Feminist issues.
First of this series: CWPFG (Children and Widows Protection and Fellowship Group.
Some long time FL NOW members have formed an organization, CWPFG International Inc. It is a charitable non-profit organization headquartered in Delray Beach, Florida, that focuses on empowering women and girls in remote areas of Kenya.
The Core Mission: The organization aims to help women and girls in Kenya overcome poverty, illiteracy, HIV and gender-based growth so residents can build stable lives.
CWPFG currently assists 10 villages with a total population of about 24,780. This is a remote area, near Lake Victoria. The main economic activity was fishing and now the fish have been depleted. Most women rely on small scale business funded by CWPFG and men do small scale farming for a subsistence economy.
The Programs that help women and girls are:
-The Deborah Ullian Kashdan Scholarship Program
-The F.W. Reproductive Health and Sexual Education Program
-The Natalie Andre Women Entrepreneurship Program
-The Doris Rosen Water and Sanitation Program
-The Lin Amendt Agi-Entrepreneurship Program
Natalie Andre has helped women buy 3 goats for each homestead. Why 3? Two Nanny Goats to give milk and be eventually be meat. One male to make the milk happen. Also in her program, feed is given to 100 chickens so they can lay eggs and eventually become meat.
Doris Rosen has provided cisterns to catch the rain water for a group of homesteads. Before the cisterns came to the village, women and girls would take containers to the polluted creeks and carry them many miles back home. Now, they will have clean water with just opening the faucet on the cistern.
F.W. has provided sanitary napkins, Contraceptive devices and sex education information. Just like in the United States, girls miss school because of their menses. Before the sanitary napkins arrived, girls were using dirty rags which often gave them infections.
Below is the story of one of the young women CWPFG has helped.
Would you like more information, please go to https://cwpfg.org/
Anne is 32 years old, has 5 children and shares a husband with 4 cowives. She has been helped by the F.W. Reproductive Health and Sexual Education Program with free contraceptives. She is now able sell vegtables with the help of the Natalie Andre Entrepreneurship Program .
