From Five Election Defeats to President, Myriam Spiteri Debono’s Remarkable Rise

The Gozitan Who Outlasted Every Closed Door On the small island of Gozo, separated from Malta by a narrow channel of blue water, a remarkable political life began with a…

NAFOWA Trains Women to Turn Skills and Ideas Into Businesses

Baking, tailoring, beadwork and catering are skills many women already possess. For the Nigerian Air Force Officers’ Wives Association (NAFOWA), however, possessing a skill is only the beginning. The bigger…

From a Small Shop to a Voice for Women Across Africa, NIGAWD Turns 14

Fourteen years ago, the New Generation Girls and Women Development Initiative (NIGAWD) began in a small shop with little more than an idea, determination and what its founder describes as…

From Academic Setback to the DRC’s First Female Prime Minister

Picture a young woman standing outside an examination hall in Belgium, holding a paper that says she has failed her second year of university. She is far from home. Her…

From Defeat to the Presidency: How Halla Tómasdóttir Turned Setbacks into Leadership

Reykjavík, 1968. A plumber and a social educator welcomed a daughter on 11 October. Nothing about her birth suggested that she would one day become president. There was no political…

From McDonald’s Counter to Thailand’s Top Job: The Rise and Fall of Paetongtarn Shinawatra

From McDonald’s Counter to Thailand’s Top Job: The Rise and Fall of Paetongtarn Shinawatra In March 2004, an 18-year-old Paetongtarn Shinawatra put on a red-and-yellow uniform and stood behind a…