After reading Vital Voices: 100 Women Using Their Power to Empower, I was left with two distinct thoughts:

1.  Our future is in good hands. Capable, creative, competent, compassionate, female hands. Women who acknowledge problems and situations that need to be changed, fixed, resolved. Women who don’t just talk about making change; they actively make the change.

2. I have a lot to learn. While the book did include some familiar names (including Malala Yousafzai, Geena Davis, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Amanda Gorman, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg to name just a few), most of the women featured in this beautiful book were unknown to me.

The book highlights 100 women from around the world; women who are working in the fields of education, the environment, politics, healthcare, and more. 

All of these women deserve to be highlighted, so how to choose who to write about for a blog post? In a very unscientific way, I made my decision by flipping through the book and randomly selecting these four women:

Kakenya Ntaiya of Kenya. “Founder and president  of the Kakenya Center for Excellence, an organization committed to ensuring that every girl in her community has the opportunity for a different future, armed with education and free from violence.”

Michelle Bachelet of Chile. “Dedicated her life to achieving equality and human rights for all as a public servant, at the United Nations and as Chile’s first female president.”

Priti Patkar of India. “Co-founder and director of Prerana, an organization committed to ending the cycle of intergenerational sex abuse and human trafficking in the red-light district of Mumbai, India.” 

Christelle Kwizera of Rwanda. “Founder of Water Access Rwanda, an award-winning innovative social enterprise offering tailor-made solutions for the collection, distribution and purification of water.”