Donations update: Support Rise Up as it partners with powerful women and girl leaders to transform the world

Note from the CREDO Mobile team: This March, Rise Up is among three amazing groups that will receive a share of our monthly grant. Funding from the CREDO Mobile community will help Rise Up as it partners with women, girls and allies who are transforming their communities and countries in a global movement for justice and equity.

Read this important blog post about Rise Up’s critical work, then visit CREDODonations.com and cast your vote to help send funding to Rise Up to support its efforts—and the efforts of our other outstanding March grantees.

Right now, harmful laws and practices deny women, girls and gender-nonconforming people basic rights and freedoms, including access to education, health and economic opportunity.

Local leaders — women, girls and allies — in communities around the world are working to uproot these systems of oppression by advocating for gender equity and justice. However, without access to the training, funding and support networks they need, these leaders face significant challenges and their voices often go unheard.

At Rise Up, we’re addressing global challenges differently. Since 2009, our powerful network of 800 leaders has successfully advocated for over 185 new and improved laws and policies, positively impacting more than 160 million people globally.

To advance gender equity, we invest in the power, resilience and agency of local leaders who best understand their own lived realities and develop their own solutions to the problems they face in their unique social, cultural and political contexts.

We identify visionary local leaders in countries around the world, listen to their hopes and goals, recognize their power, support their ideas and invest in their advocacy strategies. Each Rise Up Leader participates in an intensive leadership and advocacy training program, has the opportunity to receive competitive grant funding to advance gender-equitable laws and policies, and is connected to a global network of peers, allies and funders — all with the goal of creating meaningful, lasting change.

Rise Up embraces an intersectional approach and focuses on the three core areas of education, health and economic opportunity because these are central to women and girls’ ability to pursue their aspirations and achieve success safely and autonomously.

In the face of enormous obstacles, we’ve seen Rise Up Leaders persevere to achieve the change their communities and countries need most by successfully advocating for laws, policies and programs that improve the lives of women, girls and gender-nonconforming people.

2024 is a very special year for Rise Up, as we’re celebrating our 15th anniversary. In partnership with Rise Up Leaders and their organizations, we’ve made significant progress on some of the world’s biggest challenges in those 15 years. We’ve helped bring an end to child marriage in India, strengthened protections for gender-based violence survivors in Nigeria, increased women’s economic opportunities through workplace-safety measures in South Africa, improved access to education for girls in Kenya and enhanced prenatal and postpartum care for Black mothers in the U.S.

Rise Up Leader spotlight

Nsini Udonta has seen the effects of gender-based violence in Nigeria, through her personal experience in an abusive marriage and through her work at a domestic violence shelter. With Rise Up’s support and funding, Nsini successfully advocated for the implementation of a law to ensure domestic violence cases would be fast-tracked for processing within 72 hours, protecting 4.5 million women and girls from violence in Nigeria.

“My hope for the future is to see equity, opportunity and social justice for women and girls in Nigeria and across the globe,” Nsini says.

Even though achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls is one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, we are not on track to achieve gender equality by 2030.

We know that realizing Rise Up’s vision of an equitable world is a long and uphill battle but we remain hopeful and action-oriented due to Rise Up Leaders’ tenacity. Each dollar of support for Rise Up goes toward powerful Rise Up Leaders who are transforming their communities and countries.

Rise Up Leader spotlight

Riya Thakur joined the Rise Up network with a decade of experience and a vision to combat a lack of sexual and reproductive health services in underserved parts of Delhi. Riya worked to increase young people’s access to sexual and reproductive health services to prevent unwanted pregnancies and improve school enrollment outcomes. With the training and funding she received from Rise Up, Riya and the Population Foundation of India achieved the support of the Delhi government and ensured that 550,000 young people now have the ability to make their own decisions about their bodies.

“The unique design of the Rise Up leadership initiative helps advocates and leaders to implement their ideas through the provision of financial support,” Riya says. “This helps create a ripple of change — one leader to many.”

The time for urgent action to advance gender equity is now. As we at Rise Up celebrates our 15th anniversary this year, we also are ready for the hard work ahead.

We can’t do this work alone. We need your support to strengthen the global movement for gender equity and justice. Together, we can make a difference and back Rise Up Leaders who are working for a future where everyone can thrive.

To learn more about what we do, please visit RiseUpTogether.org.