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Celebrating our Five-Year Anniversary! | Birthed at the Aspen Institute in 2019, WFI has partnered dozens of universities with organizations in 15 countries on action research and funded their most innovative ideas in service to humanity. | Painting by WFI Arts Council member Zuhal Feraidon | Thanks to support from our donors, including the Cordes Foundation, and iCohere's technical expertise and secure platform, this year our Lynn University Social Impact Lab Team is providing consulting to the Sakena Fund to launch a tailored curriculum and computer lab educating 22 Afghan women with skills for freedom, leadership, and self-reliance. | Thanks to support from our donors, including Woven Teaching, our program with the University of California, Berkeley and California high schools uses poetry inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to share the voices of our newcomers to America and to unify our communities. Join us as we scale this program to high schools across the country in 2026! | Thanks to support from our donors, including the U.S.-India Friendship Alliance, WFI has partnered the Parsons School of Design with ZariZar Luxury Shawls & Minerals in India to build a Crafts Village & Training Center for Women, uplifting a rural community hard hit by Covid, promoting sustainable fashion, and preserving the precious heritage of Himroo weaving. | Inspired by the White Pony Express founder, who encouraged WFI to spread the "shared abundance" model internationally, Wings of Love provides much more than food and employment workshops: It brings love to everyone it touches. | Thanks to TC Energy and the Doris M Carter Foundation as well as Mexican food companies including Alsea and Chedraui, our UAM Azcapotzalco and University of Veracruz teams successfully piloted a food rescue program in Veracruz, Mexico based on training from our four-year partnership with and the award-winning model of the White Pony Express in California. This year, with the UAM team's leadership, our new teams at Benito Juarez Autonomous University and UNAM have begun implementing Wings of Love in two more cities: Oaxaca and Mexico City! | | |
A Letter from our Global Programs Manager,
Dr. Dresda Méndez
| | On July 22, over 1,000 runners joined our Race with a Cause: Wings of Love, organized by WFI and the 50+1 Oaxaca Business Women Collective. The event collected more than 1,500 kg of food to support 50 women and their families in El Jardín, Oaxaca. | | |
Dresda E. Méndez de la Brena, PhD.
Global Programs Coordinator
Women Forward International
Why a food rescue program matters?
As a Mexican woman, I see a food rescue program as both an act of love and an act of defiance. It responds not only to material hunger but also to the deeper hungers: for safety, for dignity, for community, and, most of all, for love.
In a country where 7 out of 10 women have experienced some form of gender-based violence, and where 23.5 million people live in food poverty, rescuing food is more than philanthropy—it’s a way of reclaiming care as a collective responsibility and creating spaces where solidarity and love become tangible.
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There’s something exhilarating about crossing a finish line.
It’s that heart-pounding mix of relief, pride, and anticipation—because deep down, we know it’s not just an end, but the launchpad for what comes next.
At Women Forward International, we know that crossing that line is never an end—it's a transformation. Each milestone marks the beginning of new possibilities, deeper connections, and greater impact.
This season, we celebrate our programs which have crossed significant thresholds—
- Building the foundation for a Crafts Village to provide creative industry employment for rural women in India and to preserve the precious heritage of Himroo weaving;
- Launching a fully equipped e-learning laboratory for women in Afghanistan where there are few resources for training and education for women and girls in the country;
- Amplifying the voices of international students in the U.S. through the inspiring study of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and
- Sharing abundance and expanding access to healthy food and new life opportunities for women in Mexico through the loving service of our next generation and whole communities.
Thank you for walking—and running—alongside us. We hope this issue leaves you inspired to cross all the finish lines ahead, and the courage to be open to the bold new beginnings they bring.
With gratitude,
Dresda Méndez, Ph.D.
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We've reached our five-year goal to seed collaborative programs led by our next generation and local partners on the ground!
Now, you can join our Summer Campaign to help these community-led programs expand and grow!
| | Stealth and quiet as a snow leopard in the forest, WFI has opened new vistas of understanding for our next generation about what the true purpose of education can be. | | |
About Women Forward International (WFI):
With programs across four continents, Women Forward International (WFI) www.womenforwardinternational.org builds creative partnerships that bridge mind and heart to bring about unity, collaboration, and service to humanity. WFI pairs teams of graduate students with in-country organizations to complete action-oriented research and implement innovative solutions, making student research and innovation matter. WFI’s partnerships encompass a range of private sector, academic and non-profit clients to identify research critical to human progress. These projects include empowering women artisans in conflict zones, enabling sustainable farming with gender equity, and taking steps toward the elimination of hunger along with inclusive access to education through digital and other unique platforms. WFI also channels the transformative power of Art, when inspired with love, to bring about human unity. All research also goes to WFI’s chief partner, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), for a resource library of best practices.
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