Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Christine Chilufya Glidden. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Christine Chilufya , really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
In 2014, I met a young woman who had recently relocated to the US from a Nepali refugee camp where she had lived for 17yrs. Quiet and fragile, she proceeded to describe to me the brutal conditions there. I listened trying not to reveal my horror.
One day over tea, Yangjin told me that none of the menstruating women in the camp possessed underwear or sanitary pads. During her period, she sat on a rag in the corner of her one-room house/hut and waited until it was over. She didn’t even know what a period was. She didn’t know there was a ‘thing’ called underwear.
I was shocked! Then, enraged. Then I was transformed and my life shifted. I founded Women to Be, an all-volunteer non-profit called Women To Be. I discovered a washable, reusable sanitary pad design called a ‘kit’ that lasts 3yrs.
Since then, we have brought 17,000 ‘kits’ of pads and underwear and a reproductive health class to women and girls around the world who until then, had been using rags and leaves to stem their flow. They knew nothing about periods or sexual intimacy.
Now, with local partners, WTB has established 4 sustainable sewing centers in Nepal to train and hire vulnerable women to sew our products. Then, we distribute them to girls in remote villages to keep them in school and help them avoid child marriage and early pregnancy.
We’ve branched off-mission a few times. During the height of Covid, I organized a volunteer effort to fund, collect and deliver 35 tons of food and supplies to the Navajo Nation. In 2023 and again this year, we distributed 10,000 pairs of Bombas Socks and well over 1000 kits to local homeless centers, the Navajo Nation, and 5 New Mexico pueblos.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
As far as new ventures, Women To Be is establishing a website and social media accounts to offer free reproductive health info to young people in Nepal. I hope to make this available to other countries. It’s surprising to me how little so much of the world does not know the facts of life. We also will be offering information on intimate relationships, dating, and self esteem. Within these topics, I want to make sure we include the meaning of ‘no’ and what gender equity looks like.
And I want to start something I call the Period Library where women from around the world can go to upload the stories of their first periods and search to read the stories of others. Hopefully, this can become a research project comparing and contrasting the experiences per country. For this, someone with research background would be helpful.
We’re constantly seeking funds and talent. Without money, our work would cease to exist. Grant writers and fund raisers are key. To be successful with the health info and Library projects, we need people to help write the website, create the social accounts, write content, get friends to add the the Library, and keep everything fresh and moving. It’s a team effort.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
1. Three separate things *. *Things are never as bad as they seem and things are never as good as they seem. *Just as you think you understand something and know how to manage it, it changes. The end is rarely as you predict. *There are no ‘good’ things or ‘bad’ thing that happens. It is just the thing that happened. I try to allow the ‘bad’ things in to my life and change from and with them. In fact, now, I get excited when something ‘bad’ happens. It’s my chance to take risks, trust the uncertainty, and become changed in the process. I guess what I’m saying is, just allow whatever happens to be in your life. Let it tell you what it means.
2. Risk is a sometimes undervalued quality. As I’ve gotten older, I have learned to fun toward risk. Risk has become a freedom and a form of entertainment in my life. I jump off the cliff of uncertainty and love the fall. Risk gives me power and usually produces meaningful results. It allows me to take on big projects, go places, and meet people not available to me in a careful life. Sure it’s scary, who cares? That’s the fun! Take the leap. Your confidence will grow.
3, I try to be in flow with nature. I spend a lot of time outdoors and find it healing and fortifying. Nature leads with integrity and never disappoints. I try to follow that path. I keep my word by doing what I say I will do. When there have been times where I can’t, I tell the person and clean it up. We are our word. Without our word, our integrity is compromised and people notice this. We will fall out of the natural flow and we miss the peace and fullness that comes with living a connected life.
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
What are we looking for? We are looking for powerful, dedicated individuals who want to change the life trajectories for thousands of girls- girls who now live in shame and are dependent.for life on others, mostly men. But girls who could live in freedom, directing their own lives, and able to support their own families. And that’s what we do at WTB.
We’re constantly seeking funds and volunteer talent. Grant writers and fund raisers would be so helpful. Then, to be successful with the reproductive health info website and Period Library projects, we need people to help to create content for the two websites and the social media accounts, get friends to upload their period stories to the Library and keep everything fresh and moving. We also need some tech people to add new features to the websites and keep them updated.
Our Nepal partners who are working with us on these projects are half a world away. It’s fun and interesting to become friends with them over Zoom and find out more about them. Anyone working on these projects would do same.
Volunteers can meet them in person, explore the Nepal culture, and meet our sewing staff and the girls in their remote villages who receive our kits. I’ll take you. It’s way off the tourist routes. Anyone is welcome.
Take a risk. Take a stand for girls. Lead with your integrity. Thanks for considering helping us out. Please see our website www.Women2Be.org. Or contact me csglidden@swcp.com.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.women2be.org
- Facebook: https://Facebook.com/women2be505
- Other: We need help with all of this!
Image Credits
Christine Chilufya Glidden
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