Wednesday's Woman of Courage: Tina Thinkinnewareas Jonasen

Today's WWRG Woman of Courage is

Tina Thinkinnewareas Jonasen .

Tina is Chairwoman of the Female Courage Foundation whose mission to make a positive difference for women worldwide regardless of background, religion, education or income.  

Here is some additional information of the group.  I have joined this and post to their FB page.  I am honored to be a part of Tina's outreach. I encourage you to also lend your support.

VISION FOR THE FCF
The goal and vision of the Female Courage Foundation to be known by women worldwide in 2015.

The purpose of the Female Courage Foundation:

To give women worldwide a higher self-esteem and greater courage

Support future female entreprenours worldvide.

To offer internet seminars and long distance education via the World Wide Web. Self-help tools will be available to help women to again greater courage and self-esteem

To offer women the opportunities for personal and career development at a crucial time in their lives. This will give them courage to take responsibility for their own life, career and the future

To promote the free exchange of research and e-learning programs and subsequent seminars. The programs will be developed by a group of people with international experience and in collaboration with researchers

To create an international forum to develop strong networks across national borders via www.femalecourage.com

To create cooperation with industrial companies, international networks, ambassadors and patrons

Company Overview

 

Female Courage Foundation is a charity with a mission to make a positive difference for women worldwide regardless of background, religion, education or income.

We empower women by:

• Offering internet education and mentoring
...
• Creating a strong international network of courageous women

Too many women in the world lack courage and self-esteem. This is normally either due to their own conceived limitations, or because of wider social norms.

The ambition of the Female Courage Foundation is to give women worldwide more self-esteem and courage. The Female Courage Foundation wishes to create a global consciousness for women through an exchange of knowledge, wisdom, education and networking.

We also wish to support future female entreprenuers by giving them tools, network and funds. 

Wednesday's Women of Courage - Kathryn McManus

In an industry that has been largely male-dominated for the better part of the last 50 years, Kathryn McManus has created a name for herself by doing what women do best - work hard, be authentic, never give up!

In 2008, she took the first of several courageous steps and left behind a successful career at CNN, where she headed up their Japanese Business Unit, to form NewsCertified, an online service free to independent or newsroom-based journalists, featuring an array of certified interview-ready sources in more than 1,000 specialty areas.

Today, her hard work and dedication has borne fruit, and is helping other women find work in a new environment where traditional news organizations have closed bureaus around the world.

In a recent interview in Displaced Journalists, an online community for journalists in transition, Kathryn told Founder Susan Older "As a journalist, I would receive hundreds of solicitations a day from organizations highlighting story ideas and experts that I would promptly delete,” says McManus. “Then when I needed someone, I would scramble, trying to find ‘interview-ready’ experts (not generalists) who could comment. The solution seemed so easy: a database of certified ‘interview-ready’ experts that the media can draw from when the need arises.”

This is truly a win-win for all. The courage to make it happen and the work to keep it on an upward path is yet another one of the many women-led business success stories that visionaries like Kathryn are writing every day.

The Wealthy Women's Resource Guide is proud to be a Sponsoring Organization to their Influencing The Headlines community.

Please show your support by attending one of their events taking place in major cities across the US. The next one is April 8 in Chicago entitled "Empowering Women in Media".

Wednesday's Women of Courage - Voices of September 11th's Mary Fetchet

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 that took the lives of over 3,000 civilians and military personnel, and forever changed the lives of countless others.

Mary Fetchet's 24 year old son Brad, was killed in the attack on number two World Trade Center that day. Over the past decade Mary, a trained Social Worker, has worked tirelessly and courageously to help victim's families and others affected by the tragedy through the Voices of September 11th Foundation she co-founded in October of 2001. In 2003, they received 501 (c)3 status and continue to expand their outreach.

Here is some of her bio from the Voices website:

"Ms. Fetchet has achieved significant local and national praise for her advocacy work. A strong advocate for raising national and local preparedness, Ms. Fetchet campaigned for the creation of the independent 9/11 Commission and continues to promote the implementation of the Commission's recommendations for government reforms. She has testified before the 9/11 Commission, and before the United States Senate and House of Representatives on five occasions. She has made countless appearances on national television programs, and frequently contributes to print and radio news media.

Ms. Fetchet has served on a number of advisory boards and organizations including: The Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Independent Commission, the National Homeland Defense Foundation, the National Traumatic Stress Network, the Coalition of 9/11 Families, the Family Advisory Committee of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), Columbia’s WTC Evacuation Study as well as the Homeland Security Advisory Council's Homeland Security Alert System Task Force.

Ms. Fetchet's work has brought her substantial recognition that includes being a recipient of the National Justice Award in 2003 and being presented with the 'Connecticut Hero' award by Senator Joseph Lieberman in September 2004. She was also named an ABC News Person of the Year in December 2004. Other honors include a 2005 Red Cross Award, a 2005 Rotary Foundation Paul Harris Fellowship, a 2006 "Connecticut's Most Uncommon Women" award. Ms. Fetchet was also featured on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams Making a Difference and Hometown Heroes and DIRECTTV Hometown Heroes Production.

A graduate of Columbia University with an M.S. degree, Ms. Fetchet worked as a clinical social worker at Bridges, an outpatient mental health clinic in Milford, CT. She lives in New Canaan with her husband Frank, and has two surviving sons, Chris, age 22, and Wes, age 29".

Mary and her staff are busily preparing for some of the numerous events surrounding the tenth anniversary. Please visit the Voices website for more information on how to get involved or make a donation toward the effort.

Wednesday's Women of Courage - Today is Love Your Body Day

The Now Foundation and their Women's Health Project have declared today " Love Your Body Day".

This is the thirteenth year that this event has occurred. In 1998, then NOW Foundation President Patricia Ireland declared, "We are sounding the alarm that advertising can be hazardous to women's health." "On Love Your Body Day, women across the country will celebrate our bodies and reject unhealthy stereotypes. We will also put advertisers on notice: Stop profiting from campaigns and products that are bad for women," Ireland said.

As with women's poverty issues, a subject I wrote about recently, I see very little change. In fact, it appears the situation is getting worse.

According to Elizabeth McGee, NOW Foundation Special Projects Director, fashion models also send a dangerous message to young people. According to the California Department of Health Services, the average weight of a model is 23 percent lower than that of an average woman; 20 years ago the differential was only 8 percent. The constant bombardment of images of emaciated women on billboards and television and in magazines sells products at a terrible price to our communities. Findings show the diet industry is booming and thousands of young women suffer from eating disorders; it is estimated that 20 percent of college women battle bulimia.

Please take time today to think about your own image. Love your body, and your mind. Treat them both with respect, and have the courage to resist the temptation to do things that are not positive to your self-esteem.

But most importantly, be a role model for younger females who have never had a more opportune time to make a difference in the world.

Wednesday's Women of Courage - Aude De Thuin

Beginning October 14, 1200+ of the most powerful women on the planet will descend on Deauville, France to take part in the 6th Annual Women's Forum, often referred to as the "Davos for Women".

Were it not for the courage and vision of it's founder, Aude de Thuin, who took a personal financial risk to put on the first Forum in 2005, this important event would not have been possible.

In a recent Forbes.com article "Why the world needs a "Woman's Davos"", De Thuin describes herself as " independent-minded, and stubborn". She has spent most of her life as an entrepreneur, having put herself through college working as a model.

When asked why she set out to start the Women's Forum in 2004, she told the interviewer that going to the mostly all male Davos event would be fruitless, since just a small number of women are attendees and small business is not well represented. After being denied bank loans, she sold one of her ventures and put the money toward the first event.

When she became doubtful whether she had done the right thing, her husband told her to "trust your intuition". She took the first courageous step, and never looked back.

This year's Forum promises to be the best ever. Attendance is up 20% over last year, and her list of sponsors has grown to include some of the top firms in the world.

I encourage you to login to the Forum website and view the programs and initiatives they have in play, and consider getting involved.

I hope to see many of you there for the 2011 meeting.

Wednesday's Women of Courage - Shauna Mei

In my Tuesday's Treasure post yesterday I featured a new website - AHAlife.com - that was created by my 85 Broads colleague, Shauna Mei.

Shauna spoke at a recent 85 Broads Power Breakfast, and gave us all some background on her life and new passion.

Everyone in the room was moved when she described her journey from a child born in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China to attending MIT, working at Goldman Sachs, and living and working in Manhattan as a fashion industry executive in successful firms she either founded or co-founded.

She also shared with us that when her Mother found out she was pregnant with a girl, she insisted on keeping the child despite pressure to have an abortion. Shauna said that her Mother felt that the child that was inside of her was special and would grow up to achieve great things.

Her Mother was also told that the fetus had a heart defect. Again, she held fast to her conviction to see the pregnancy through.

Shauna's accomplishments bear witness to how right her Mother's intuition was.

Miraculously, her heart has healed on it's own, eliminating the need for life-threatening surgery.

Courage to survive, courage to compete, courage to press on regardless.

These are traits that drive Women of Courage to achieve greatness.

And thanks to the courage of a Mother, passed on to her Daughter, Shauna now inspires us to do the same.

Wednesday's Women of Courage - Maya Lin

Today's Woman of Courage exemplifies true determination. As both artist and architect, her work reflects a strong interest in the environment. She has served as an advisor on sustainable energy use, and as a Board Member of the National Resources Defense Council. In 2000 she published her first book, Boundaries. She describes it as a "visual and verbal sketchbook, where image can be seen as text and text is sometimes used as image."

Here is more background on her work courtesy of feminist.com:

Maya Lin was born in 1959. Her parents emigrated from China and taught at Ohio University. When she was a 21-year-old student at Yale, her design for the Vietnam Memorial was chosen from over twelve hundred proposals. The controversy that ensued was ugly and unwarranted. Yet, Maya Lin defended her work with extraordinary grace and courage. Her vision manifests itself in the Vietnam Memorial, one of America's most significant monuments, with the names of those who died in the war chiseled into a wall of black marble slicing through the earth. The Civil Rights Memorial she designed in Montgomery, Alabama, pays tribute to fallen Civil Rights workers. Like the Vietnam Memorial, the names of those honored are chiseled in stone, but this monument creates the appearance of a stone table with water flowing over the sculpture as if rising from the earth itself.

Both monuments not only witness the past, but honor the outcome in the present. Maya's vision is strongly influenced by the Earth Artists of the 1960's and 1970's. She credits her Asian-American heritage as the source of her ability to combine the influences of East and West as well as reason and intuition to manifest within her architectural designs. Her strong concern for the environment is demonstrated by her use of recycled, living, or natural materials in her work. Her vision is clearly one of expansive respect for past, present, and future generations.