Women are key.

Thank you so much for your thoughtful article about the essential role women play in fighting poverty and hunger ("Teach a Woman to Fish ..." by Elizabeth Palmberg, June 2005). Transforming the lives of women is indeed key to eradicating poverty and building a more just and peaceful world.

At Lutheran World Relief, we approach all of out overseas relief and development work with an eye toward gender equity and a keen sense of women's power and potential. By focusing much of out energies on women, we have seen time and again that empowered women become catalysts for change within their families and communities, changing oppressive traditions and cultural norms that deprive people of the dignity to which we are all entitled, and helping men to understand and embrace the contributions that women can make.

Women are making a difference in communities all over the world. Working to promote the status and well-being of women is hot only a moral imperative--it's a wise investment of out resources for reducing poverty and building healthy families and communities.

Kathryn Wolford

President, Lutheran World Relief

Baltimore, Maryland