Aspen Peak - Niche Media - Aspen living at its peak
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/310878
A Pakistani artisan at work on women's flip-flops, the inaugural product for Her Own Two Feet. continued from page 76 education as a young girl. And as a young bride, her husband's untimely death created further hardships for her and her new baby boy. Lacking literacy and education, job opportunities were few and far between, yet Mumtaz is a fighter. She knew education, literacy, nutrition, and good health would be the key to her son's success, and she needed income to provide that for him. Her Own Two Feet project has provided a source of income for Mumtaz and women like her. Research has proven that as women increase their participation in the formal economy in the developing world, their countries become more stable, less violent, and less likely to resort to force to solve both external and internal conf licts. Furthermore, as the population at large attains greater educational levels, the threat of civil conf lict is further reduced. Extremists are denied fertile ground from which to recruit when women and girls become empowered. The Taliban shot young Malala Yousafzai, the education activist, for this very reason. They know empowerment of women and girls will be their undoing. In this way, every pair of Her Own Two Feet purchased is one step forward for women (by providing a job for a woman in a conf lict country) and one giant leap for womankind, since 15 percent of sales is donated to educational and vocational scholarships for women and children in those countries. Her Own Two Feet shoes are available at O2 Aspen, 500 W. Main St. (studio shop), 970-925-4002, and 605 E. Cooper Ave., 970-925-3161; o2aspen.com, peaceoftheactioninc.com AP SPIRIT OF GENEROSITY 074-079_AP_SP_SOG_SUM_FALL_14.indd 78 5/6/14 5:12 PM