SHE-CAN builds global female leadership by equipping and empowering talented low-opportunity women from post-conflict & climate-challenged countries with the education, mentorship, and leadership skills needed to change their nations and the world.
We believe that including women at all key decision-making tables is instrumental to solving today’s biggest issues — ensuring equity, solving the climate crisis, and building sustainable growth. However, women around the world are systematically blocked from reaching decision-maker status. SHE-CAN’s goal is to educate and empower enough young women to change this.
As SHE-CAN continues to grow, cohorts of empowered women will spur collective action. As our graduates move into positions of power, they inspire other women to rise up. And in turn, they can pull other women up, who can then pull even more women up, who can then pull even more women up. The sheer force of a growing population of empowered, educated and connected women working together to protect and pull up women can change the world. SHE-CAN is proud to be an instrumental capacity builder ushering in systemic change for generations to come.
SHE-CAN identifies high-achieving young women in Cambodia, Liberia, and Guatemala. After a rigorous recruitment process, scholars are matched with a team of dedicated mentors and apply to college in the U.S.
SHE-CAN scholars win full-ride scholarships to top colleges, and while in the U.S., they participate in leadership training and exclusive internship opportunities.
After graduation, SHE-CAN scholars return home ready to leapfrog into positions of power and empower other women. Since 2011, we’ve helped 103 women win over $27M in scholarships.
Extensive research shows women leaders have a positive impact on many systemic global challenges—things like fostering lasting peace, economic prosperity, and human rights. Evidence shows that including women in the peace process boosts the probability of an agreement lasting at least two years by 20%, and the probability of an agreement lasting at least 15 years by more than one-third. Women in leadership positions have allocated policy resources in a way that better promotes human rights. For example, climate change is an issue that disproportionately burdens women and girls in the developing world. Therefore, many women in leadership positions have placed an importance on advocating for more environmentally sustainable policies. This has been the case in nations all over the globe.
But to become the leaders who impact these issues, women need access to the high-level education necessary to compete in a male-dominated, often discriminating world. This is why most female Nobel Peace Prize winners, high-ranking ministers, parliamentarians, acclaimed activists, and heads of influential NGO’S in the developing world hold a U.S. or western degree. In today’s reality, it’s basically an unstated requirement to become a serious contender for most global leadership positions.
Unfortunately, the large global investment in girls’ education stops way too soon—after high school. Many of the world’s best and brightest students have no way to attend college and reach their full potential as leaders. As a result, leadership in these countries remains mostly male and concentrated within the elite class.
