Tonight Women of the World was granted a cash award to continue its work in educating women refugee English language learners. This grant was donated by the
Utah Women’s Alliance for Building Communities and will be used to develop a tutoring curriculum for teaching English language learners the basics in conversational English — the language skills that they need in the grocery store, in the hospital, and to improve the lives of themselves and their families. Since Women of the World found one of its members unable to speak for herself when her landlord failed to fix the mold overtaking their apartment, we have been active in determining which language skills are essential for new immigrants and refugees to develop in order to build self-sufficiency — we feel we have developed a good list in this regard.Women of the World was one of two grantees chosen from over 25 applicants. All grantees and awardees are performing gracious works of service and Women of the World is fortunate to be amongst such helpful and caring company. As founder Samira Harnish said in her acceptance speech, “with this grant, you have given women a voice to overcome their own struggles and I ensure you the first thank you letter is coming from a newly literate woman in the spring.” You can see Samira’s entire speech on WoW TV.