Sowing the seeds of peace, one ‘sister’ at a time

Can women bring peace into the world, without war, by changing lives one person at a time? This is our question for today.

We’ll begin exploring an answer by meeting Zainab Salbi. Her father was Saddam Hussein’s personal pilot. Zainab’s mother sent her to the United States in a hastily arranged marriage when she realized Saddam was eyeing her daughter lasciviously. In Zainab’s memoir “Between Two Worlds” it becomes clear that Saddam was a serial rapist, too.

Zainab’s arranged marriage proved disastrous, but after it ended she blossomed into a global activist. In 1993, when she read about the rape camps in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia, she brainstormed a program similar to international programs in which families sponsor children. As she explains in her book, “One woman at a time would sponsor a rape victim, send her money each month and write her letters of support so she would know she wasn’t alone.”

And Women for Women International, based in Washington D.C., was born. Enter Oprah. In 2000, she featured Zainab’s program, which by then had grown to include women struggling in war countries throughout the globe.

Watching Oprah that day was Leslie Picht, now 34, now a major stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base. Leslie felt somewhat helpless when confronted with images of women suffering globally. Leslie wasn’t in a position to sponsor a woman just then, but she knew eventually she would.

In December 2004, Leslie was matched with a “sister” in Iraq. For a year, Leslie sent her money along with chatty letters in which Leslie said she was a pilot, but didn’t provide details, because it was too dangerous for an Iraqi woman to possess letters from an Air Force pilot.

Instead Leslie wrote about her hobbies — riding motorcycles and playing hockey. And she explained, “I still paint my fingernails and wear dresses.”

The Iraqi woman, who used the money to support her family, wrote back: “Your friendship is like a pearl of the sea.”

When the year ended, Leslie bid goodbye to her pen-pal sister, in accordance with the program’s rules.

Leslie’s second sister lived in the Congo. She wrote letters to Leslie on scraps of paper. Every month, Leslie sent $27, the program’s required amount, and she wrote her sister in the Congo, even when overseas on missions with Fairchild’s 92nd Air Refueling Wing, even while recovering from major surgery.

The Congo sister used the money to begin a business enterprise. The year ended. Leslie re-upped for a third sister, another woman from the Congo. This newest sister is in her 40s, a mother living in a home with no running water or electricity.

The $27 could buy Leslie seven lattes or an entrée in a fancy restaurant. Instead, Leslie has bought for herself a new way of looking at the world.

She now buys fair-trade coffee, for instance. And she realizes that “North American women take for granted that they were born in a place where their opportunities are nearly unlimited. We have the glass ceiling, and I’m not sure we shouldn’t fight for those topics, but the true women’s issues are respect and global human rights.”

Leslie knows some might see a contradiction in her military day job and this “sisters” work she does on her own time. But she responds: “Military action is the last resort. We are not occupying countries to rape, pillage and plunder. I don’t think that’s what our actions are about.”

There are nearly 20,000 sponsors like Leslie involved in Women for Women International, a first-resort effort. Since 1993, $24 million has been distributed among 55,000 women.

Can women bring peace into the world, without war, by changing lives one person at a time? Some global sisters are trying for a yes.