Inspiration

I was just going back over some notes I took after reading Phil Borges Book, Women Empowered Inspiring Change in the Emerging World. A dear friend gave it to me as a birthday gift a few years ago. We have since ordered it for our local library as well. It is an important work; an amazing book. It astounded me with not only breathtaking photos, but facts.

"Women produce half of the world's food but own just one percent of its farmland. Of the 867 million illiterate adults in the world, two thirds of those are women. On average women represent a mere ten percent of all elected legislators worldwide. Eighty percent of the world's refugees and displaced people are women and girls. An increase of one year in the average education of a nation's women corresponds to a five to ten percent decrease in that country's child mortality rates. Worldwide, at least one in three women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or abused in some way, most often by someone she knows. Between 100 and 140 MILLION girls and women have been subject to female genital mutilation - and yes, that still goes on. About one in seven girls in the developing world gets married before her fifteen th birthday."

Now that gives shock and awe a whole new meaning to me. Phil Borges is not only a talented artist but he is insightful and very inspiring.