Brick by Brick: Building Hope and Opportunity for Women Survivors Everywhere

Karen Sherman

doi:10.5771/9781538130322

Summary

After a twenty-five-year career spent fighting for women’s rights around the globe at the expense of time with her family, Karen Sherman looked around and realized she didn’t really know her children and felt little connection to her husband. With her world—work, marriage, family—crashing down, she made the rash decision to move to Rwanda with her three sons. While her boys attended the international school, she worked to better the lives of women survivors of war. But as the survivors—Josephine, Ange, Grace, Euphraise, Debora, Yvette, and Teresa—shared their stories of grit and determination, building lives and raising families despite the brutal challenges of war, genocide, and inequality, Karen began to see how her work was connected to the abuse in her own past, and how it was preventing her from becoming the woman she wanted to be. The struggles of these survivors, she realized, were the struggles of women everywhere, regardless of place or circumstance: striving to balance work and family, fighting for real options and choices, trying to make their voices heard. The strength of these women helped Karen find her own way through conflict zones and battles with corrupt politicians. In the end, the journey brings her home to her family and to a renewed commitment to fighting for women around the world to live free from violence and abuse, in peace and with dignity.

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Bibliographic data

Edition: 1/2019
Copyright year: 2019
ISBN-Print: 978-1-5381-3031-5
ISBN-Online: 978-1-5381-3032-2
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 270
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. Author’s Note No access
3. Prologue No access
1. Ch01. The Move No access
2. Ch02. The Country No access
3. Ch03. The Work No access
4. Ch04. Activists in Debt No access
5. Ch05. Tag, You’re It No access
6. Ch06. Sometimes Together, Sometimes Apart No access
7. Ch07. Rumbek No access
8. Ch08. Grace No access
9. Women in Rwanda No access
1. Ch10. Home No access
2. Ch11. Straddling No access
3. Ch12. Social Networks No access
4. Ch13. Odd Woman Out No access
5. Ch14. Debora No access
6. Ch15. Women Leaders No access
7. Ch16. Top of the Continent No access
1. Ch17. Pain into Power No access
2. Ch18. Yei No access
3. Ch19. Women’s Day No access
4. Ch20. Yvette No access
5. Ch21. Reentry No access
6. Ch22. Spring Awakening No access
7. Ch23. Ladies’ Choice No access
8. Ch24. Out of Africa No access
9. Ch25. A Better Place No access
Epilogue No access Pages 245 - 248
Acknowledgments No access Pages 249 - 250
Selected Bibliography No access Pages 251 - 258
Index No access Pages 259 - 268
About the Author No access Pages 269 - 270