Partnerships for Change



STAR Network co-directors with Linda Tarr-Whelan, US Ambassador to the UN Commission on the Status of Women and Bob Chase, Vice President of World Learning, enjoying the STAR Network Porec Conference in June 2001.

Synergistic partnerships that build sustainable links, support and alliances for social change are central to the programs of World Learning STAR Network. As an experienced international support program for women's social change leadership, STAR Network enthusiastically works with other PVOs, international organizations, and bi-lateral and multi-lateral programs to increase understanding of the positive power of women's leadership in post-war reconstruction and civil society development.

STAR Network is an associate of the Gender Task Force of the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe and enjoys productive collaborative relationships with UNIFEM, Freedom House, Ms. Foundation, Network of East-West Women, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, Women Waging Peace and many others that share its commitment to women's leadership in democratization and peacebuilding in Southeastern Europe.

Working partnerships with a wide range of public and private donors have been important to STAR Network since its inception. STAR Network has worked hard to interest private donors in investment in the region, actively educating donors on the inspiring work of women in the post-Yugoslav region and in the tremendous opportunities for philanthropic investment.

Public funds from USAID significantly leveraged small grants that extended STAR Network's programs and directly funded local initiatives relevant to women's social change leadership.



STAR Network joins Central and Eastern European labor activists at the International Trade Women's School in Rovinj, Croatia. Fall 2000

Numerous joint programs have been co-funded with the Swedish women's fund Kvinna til Kvinna, and STAR Network has actively facilitated significant grant support by the Global Fund for Women to more than 70 groups in the region.



	Jill Benderly presenting one of STAR Network's first private grants in 1996 (thanks to Shaler Adams) to Aferdita Kelmendi and Xheraldina Vula for the Girl's Media Project in Kosovo.

Small and large private donors responded quickly when STAR Network established the Kosovo Women's Fund in April 1999 to ensure that locally led social change initiatives started by women in Kosovo and neighboring countries would receive urgently needed financial resources.

More than 300 people responded, donating more than $400,000 for small grants, which enabled the following:

computer and phone line purchase for radio broadcasts in the refugee camps;
start-up health centers for women and children and family relocation;
teams of multi-ethnic Bosnian women to lead conflict resolution in tense Macedonian communities;
funds for Serbian women to attend peace-building meetings with other women from the region during the war; and
bursaries so rural Kosovar girls could resume university education.

Gifts from school children, churches, synagogues and concerned individuals matched grants from foundations including the Urgent Action Fund, Tides Foundation funds (Mendel McCormack, Virginia Wellington Cabot), Unitarian-Universalist Service Committee, Public Welfare Foundation, Working Assets and many small family funds.

For list of programs sponsored by Kosovo Women's Fund, click here.

World Learning

World Learning International Development Programs

1015 15th Street, NW, Suite 750, Washington, DC 20005 USA
Phone: (202) 408-5420 Fax: (202) 408-5397 Email: star@worldlearning.org