Women are often stuck in an abusive relationship due to poor financial situations. Programs are beginning to help abused women by giving them support and helping them become entrepreneurs in order to become financially independent.

In order to counter terrorism and reduce recidivism of incarcerated male jihadists', the Entrepreneurship and Proselytization Empowerment Program helps the wives of jailed extremists through counseling and lessons about entrepreneurship. The program can help these families stay afloat and decrease the appeal of extremism for their husbands upon release.

The poaching of rhinos in South Africa has seen a rapid increase since 2007, jumping from 13 deaths then to 1,215 in 2014. After concluding that guns alone were not the solution, a patrol of local women from impoverished areas were brought together in the Balule reserve to focus on efforts in removing snares, stopping bushmeat kitchens, setting up roadblocks and implementing educational opportunities in poor communities and schools. Since their start, the area has seen a 76% reduction in snaring and poaching incidents.

Sweden is the first country to put gender equality at the center of its foreign policy, calling the protection of women and girls’ human rights one of the greatest challenges of the century. Announced in 2014, the stance has both inspired and antagonized other countries, as well as sometimes conflicting with Sweden’s other policy goals.

In Malawi, one out of every two girls is married before the age of 18, some as young as 12 years old. However, some female chiefs are trying to end the practice. One of them, Chief Theresa Kachindamoto, has been able to dissolve more than 8oo child marriage weddings.

In some rural parts of Guatemala, "more than half the girls...marry before the age of 18." While a coalition of organizations was able to lobby lawmakers, and raise the legal marriage age to 18, real changes happened at the community level when mentors engaged with girls.

The We Have Voice Collective, a group of female and non-binary jazz and experimental musicians, have developed a code of conduct in response to rampant sexual harrassment and abuse in the music community. The collective has urged the code—which is organized into “commitments” and “definitions”—to be adopted by festivals, organizations, venues, labels, media outlets, schools, and more.

The We Have Voice Collective is a group of 14 diverse female and non-binary musicians who have developed a code of conduct to address harrassment. Their goal is for the code to be instituted by venues, festivals, labels, schools, and for the code to be incorporated into artists’ riders.

After Nepal's 2015 earthquake, many village women were left in financial devastation and struggled to support their families. The earthquake destroyed up to 90% of small enterprises and markets, so the United Nations Development Programme trained women how to weave. As a mode of recovery, the weaving industry has helped rebuild the economic and social structures through the Panchakanya group.

Women in El Salvador have long faced the extreme challenges of having fewer economic and social rights than men, making it difficult to survive when tragedy - such as an earthquake - strikes. The Romero community, which comprises of 90% women, is providing protection and community for women where they help each other survive.

In Colombia, violence against women and domestic abuse are some of the highest in the region due to prolonged conflict, distrust in police and justice system, and economic oppression. Women are helping each other survive and report abuse outside of official organizations.

In Guatemala, women are challenging traditional gender norms by playing a growing leadership role in their communities. Specifically, they are leading an initiative to paint local homes with patterns from indigenous weaving traditions. Not only are they making the towns more beautiful, but they are also demonstrating to young girls that women can do the same jobs that men can do.

Pregnant women at the US-Mexico border are often living in hard conditions and facing obstetric violence at public hospitals or being pushed into c-sections at private clinics. 'Parteras Fronterizas' offers an alternative, it is an organization of two midwives who provide care for pregnant women individually or in groups.

In Tanzania, Population Services International is leading a project using Human Centered Design to solve reproductive health issues with the support of a philanthropist who is not only funding the project but it is bringing her expertise to support the work. This new philanthropy model has been launched by Maverick Collective and is stepping away from the traditional model, allowing philanthropists to work together with design and implementation teams.

Colombia’s 2016 peace accord has a chapter on gender and sections specifically responsive to women’s needs, such as an affirmation of women’s right to own land and the establishment of a special unit to investigate conflict-related sexual violence. These provisions, a result of trailblazing inclusion of women and LGBTQ groups in the peace process, break new ground in recognizing the gendered impacts of armed conflict.

Education is far from a given for poor, rural Africans. But a group called Camfed is bringing lasting social change to African countries by educating hundreds of thousands of girls.

Though the overall poverty rate has been dropping in recent years, rural communities in Uganda still lack many basic resources, including access to healthy food, toiletries, and economic opportunity. The Network of Women in Agribusiness and Development was founded by women to empower and support their sisters through educational initiatives, agricultural training, and the provision of items such as pigs and fruit trees to help them break the cycle of poverty.

Wikipedia's editorial makeup lacks diversity—a phenomenon that could be detected by the majority “straight white male” makeup of the editing team, and inferred by the lack of information on 'feminine' topics. But thanks to the work of ‘Art + Feminism’, a DIY campaign seeking to diversify and correct Wikipedia’s coverage, people of all genders and races congregate at 'edit-a-thons, which aim for a diverse group to come together in all corners of the world to edit entries.

The project No estamos todas (“We are not all here”) was founded to call attention to rising rate of female homicide victims in Mexico as well as to commemorate victim’s lives. Artists are commissioned to make a woman’s portrait—often incorporating aspects of their lives—and these portraits are shared on the project’s Instagram account. Since November of 2017, over 80 portraits have been made and shared.

In Detroit, Michigan, residents reduce the effects of gentrification through physical activity and shared storytelling. The non-profit Pedal to Porch encourages residents to bike to their neighbors’ homes and record their memories. The effort helps retain some of the identity in Detroit’s changing communities and establishes new connections for the city to grow. Founder Cornetta Lane notes, “communities are more likely to bounce back from social and natural disasters when they know each other.”

The expansion of intellectual property laws to cover ancestral knowledge can help protect indigenous people from economic exploitation. Indigenous women in Guatemala are working to pass a law similar to one used in Australia and South Africa to protect the use of textile designs.

Non-profits in California worked together to set up a national network for undocumented immigrants to fight isolation and support legal aid. Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC) offers a free confidential hotline to report human rights abuses at detention centers and help families locate each other. CIVIC’s volunteers receive 14,000 calls a month from 210 detention centers in the United States.

Part 2 of a series on solutions to freeing victims of labor trafficking around the globe. With the help of organizations like Damayan Migrant Workers Association in New York, former victims who have been freed from labor trafficking become advocates for others, demanding changes and becoming part of the solution to a vicious cycle of worker victimization.

Sylvia Acan, co-founded Golden Women vision, an organization that teaches Ugandan women to bake cakes with the aim of helping them improve their social economic status. Many of the women, like Acan, became victims of sexual assault or gender based violence during the Ugandan war insurgency. Now, Golden Women Vision has “61 members: widows, single mothers (some whose children were abducted and never returned), domestic abuse survivors and former abductees.”

Young women face a unique set of challenges in school and as they transition into adulthood - from underrepresentation in school clubs and STEM subjects, to skewed perceptions on their clothing choices, to fewer business mentorship opportunities. Nonprofit Vital Voices is changing that with their HERLead program, which recruits girls from the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico and provides them with the resources to implement positive community initiatives, learn leadership skills, and pursue their dream careers.

Fariel Salahuddin was determined to tackle the extreme lack of access to fresh water she encountered in rural Pakistani communities, but she wanted the model to be sustainable, not dependent on donations. Most of the communities didn't have regular access to rupees to help sustain their solar water pump micro-enterprises - what they did have, however, were goats. Salahuddin set up a scheme where villagers could pay for their clean water access with livestock instead of cash, which she then sells using Facebook at high rates during Muslim festivals to generate a sustainable revenue source.