The philanthropic ladies of Impact 100 gathered last Thursday for the seventh annual Impact 100 Membership Kickoff Breakfast at the Oak Harbor Clubhouse, featuring the inspirational Sally Armstrong, human rights activist, journalist and author as its guest speaker.
“Collectively, we as members of Impact 100 have made an impact,” said board president Judy Peschio. In April, she said the all-volunteer organization’s 433 members, each donating $1,000, voted to award four $100,000 transformational grants to nonprofit organizations; three other finalists received $11,000 apiece. Impact 100 has distributed more than $2 million, funding programs related to Family, Education, Health and Wellness, and Enrichment and Empowerment; each one transformational, with a high community impact, and sustainable.
Event sponsor Toby Hill of The Hill Group, congratulated members on their hard work and unique vision, and said the personal involvement of its members in the various charities has been an important bonus for all of them.
Amy Brunjes, representing speaker sponsor Florida Power & Light, introduced Armstrong, who has received numerous awards for her powerful coverage of women and girls, often as the spoils of war, in countries such as Bosnia, Somalia, the Middle East, Rwanda, Congo and Afghanistan.
Armstrong spoke of being assigned in 1992 to write a story for a magazine on the effects of war on children in Sarajevo. After discovering that 20,000 women and children were being forced into rape camps and gang-raped, she gathered all the information and gave it to a major newspaper when she returned to Canada. Amazingly, nothing was done.
She returned to Sarajevo and eventually won multiple awards for her piece. “I didn’t get the story because I was smarter than the other journalists,” she said. “I got the story because nobody else wanted it because it was only about women.”
As a result of the courageous women who told their stories at the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague in 1998, rape was made a war crime. “That is what impact is all about,” said Armstrong.
Another issue she followed for three years involved the impact made by 160 brave little Kenyan girls, ages 3 to 17, who sued their government for failing to protect them from being raped. Women in Canada had won a similar lawsuit and teamed up to help the young Kenyan girls change history.
“What they are doing to their women and children is not cultural; it’s criminal; it’s time everybody talked about it,” said Armstrong. She noted that government officials and police have hidden behind a prerogative of cultural differences; a culture in which men, even family members, believe that sex with a little girl, the younger the better, will cure them from HIV/AIDS; and where shame is attached to the victim rather than the perpetrator.
She said these girls had been told their whole lives they had no rights, and that their mothers had no rights. Deciding that they did, the little girls dared to bust the taboo of speaking out about sexual assault.
“It was the push-back reaction every woman on the planet hoped for. Those little girls won; they won it for 10 million kids. And the follow-up has been nothing short of miraculous,” said Armstrong.
“We’ve changed the ways we are addressing the ills of society. One of the ways is with people like you who decide you can have impact.”
Autographed copies of Armstrong’s book, “Uprising: A New Age is Dawning for Every Mother’s Daughter,” are available at the Vero Beach Book Center. For information about becoming an Impact 100 member, visit www.impact100ir.com.
