Women’s Empowerment

Women’s Empowerment

Thank You for Helping Us Build the Future: A Campaign Wrap from Maji

2025-11-24T16:34:55+00:00

What a remarkable journey the past few months have been! Between May 1 and July 15, the Maji Development Coalition launched its most ambitious campaign yet—to fund the final phase of our Women’s Development Center in Maji. Thanks to the outpouring of generosity from churches, individuals, and friends of MDC, we’re thrilled to report that we’ve raised over $188,000 in gifts and pledges—with even more expected as a few church campaigns wrap up. Women’s Development Center Campaign Recap to Date   Your generosity has not only moved us closer to our funding goals, but it’s also made it possible to move [...]

Thank You for Helping Us Build the Future: A Campaign Wrap from Maji2025-11-24T16:34:55+00:00

Building Momentum: Construction Progress on the WDC

2025-11-24T16:34:55+00:00

They’re moving fast.  With the rainy season on the horizon, construction crews in Maji are working ahead of schedule to bring the Women’s Development Center to life. The first concrete slab has been poured.  Sheer walls are going up. And a group of young volunteers spent their weekend hand-mixing cement with a generator-powered machine—laying the foundation for something that will serve women for generations. This isn’t just efficient construction—it’s a labor of love, and a community-wide effort to make space for women to rise. Now we need to match their momentum. We’ve raised most of what we need—but we still [...]

Building Momentum: Construction Progress on the WDC2025-11-24T16:34:55+00:00

What Makes MDC Different: Partnership, Respect, and Results

2025-11-24T16:34:55+00:00

When Maji Development Coalition (MDC) began its work in 2015, we didn’t show up with a master plan. We arrived with questions—and ears ready to listen. Before any project began, we conducted a community needs survey to understand what the people of Maji truly needed—not what we assumed from the outside. Since then, MDC has partnered with local leaders, families, and government officials to bring solar power, clean water, and women’s self-help groups to life. This community-first approach makes MDC different. Here’s how: We Respect Local Leadership Too often, nonprofits enter communities and treat local officials as obstacles. MDC sees them as allies. In Maji, [...]

What Makes MDC Different: Partnership, Respect, and Results2025-11-24T16:34:55+00:00

A Space of Their Own: How the Women of Maji Will Benefit from the WDC

2025-11-24T16:34:55+00:00

Among the Dizi people of Maji, women had been so crushed, both men and women’s focus groups urged MDC to bring hope to women. Somehow. The Dizi, the indigenous people of Maji, were decimated by a 19th century East African slave trade that scattered the darkest skinned Africans north and east. Women took much of the impact as the culture shattered. When MDC arrived with a community needs survey, the community asked what could be done for women. Rather than mounting a rescue operation, MDC cast a vision of hope. It’s a vision that goes deeper than the symptoms. It’s a [...]

A Space of Their Own: How the Women of Maji Will Benefit from the WDC2025-11-24T16:34:55+00:00

Caroline’s Legacy, Our Promise

2025-11-24T16:34:56+00:00

Why the Women’s Development Center Matters So Much: Caroline Kurtz has spent her life walking alongside the people of Maji, Ethiopia —with deep roots, quiet strength, and a vision for sustainable change. Caroline first arrived in Maji as a first grader, when her parents came to help establish a school, a clinic, and a small church. As she returned to teach English in Addis Ababa, she often thought about Maji. After the fall of Ethiopia’s communist regime, she returned—wanting to see what remained of her father’s work and how the community had endured. What she found were church buildings repurposed as [...]

Caroline’s Legacy, Our Promise2025-11-24T16:34:56+00:00

Breaking Ground on the Women’s Development Center!

2025-11-24T16:34:56+00:00

A Foundation of Hope: The First Steps Toward the Women’s Development Center Something amazing is happening in Maji—and it’s all thanks to the Spirit moving hearts (and sand)! Just a few weeks ago, we faced a major hurdle: no sand. Maji sits high in the mountains at 8,000 feet, where there’s plenty of mud—but no sand. This is critical for building the Women's Development Center. Back when I was a kid, the tiny pile of sand on our veranda was so precious we weren’t even allowed to touch it! Today, not much has changed—building materials like sand and gravel still have [...]

Breaking Ground on the Women’s Development Center!2025-11-24T16:34:56+00:00

An Amazing Story!

2025-11-24T16:34:56+00:00

An Amazing Story - Progress in Maji! Back when I was a kid in Maji, we had a pile of sand on our veranda. That sounds like a lot of fun, doesn’t it? But no. We were not allowed to play in the sand under threat of being sent to Siberia (my dad’s favorite exaggerated warning of punishment). Why??? Well, Maji is 8000 feet high, on the last of Ethiopian mountains before the land drops off to the plains of Kenya and the savannahs of South Sudan. There was plenty of mud—clay mud—but no sand. For building with cement (we had [...]

An Amazing Story!2025-11-24T16:34:56+00:00
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