I was working in Haiti in the weeks after the January 2010 earthquake, doing what humanitarian workers do: distributing water, coordinating shelter, running logistics. I thought I knew what the women I was meeting needed. Then one of them looked me in the eye and said something that stopped me cold.

“I don’t want water. I need a job.”

I’ve told that story many times since, but I want to be careful not to let it calcify into a neat origin myth. The truth is messier. That moment didn’t instantly clarify everything, it broke something open in me that took years to understand. What it cracked open was a question I hadn’t known how to ask: what does real, lasting support for women in a crisis zone actually look like?

The answer, it turns out, has almost nothing to do with emergency aid.

Read more at: https://womensenews.org/2026/05/what-i-actually-learned-about-womens-leadership-after-the-2010-earthquake/