Leadership - A discussion of traits, characteristics, and current news of leaders.

There is increasing press on how women are leading the third world out of poverty. I have mentioned micro-credit before and the power it has to alleviate poverty through education, business training and small loans to women entrepreneurs in India, Africa and Latin America. I support Unitus in its efforts to accelerate microcredit in these areas. Click here and read about Unitus' success stories empowering women.

Unilever, the consumer products giant has now taken this concept and is using it to distribute its hygiene products to the 1.1 billion people in rural India. By doing so it is also offering thousands of women an opportunity to learn business, educate their children and thereby end the cycle of poverty.

John Lancaster, correspondent for The Washington Post, shares a fascinating article about Unilever bringing its Lifebuoy soap and Pepsodent toothpaste products to small villages by enlisting 20,000 poor and mostly illiterate women to distribute the products.


Why women?


One of the Indian women who can now send her children to school hopes her daughter will become a doctor. She said, "We should not distinguish between male and female. I want my children to be better than me."

Hear, hear.