Everywhere you look, older women lead the way.

Older women are carers.
Older women are business leaders.
Older women are health workers.
Older women are community volunteers.
Older women lead the way.

Let's give older women the recognition they deserve. On International Women's Day 2023, and every day, we celebrate the contribution of older women around the world.

Too often, older women are overlooked in society, but we know that older women are the pillars of their communities.

They are strong, resilient and inspiring, leading the way in many different ways.

We’d like to introduce you to three older women who have been involved in our work. They are community leaders who have created positive change in their communities. We would like to recognise them, and all inspiring older women, and the vital role they have.

It is time that society embraced equity and gave older women the recognition they deserve. #EmbraceEquity

Phee Phaw Yay is a mother, a grandmother, a business owner, a volunteer health worker, a fundraiser, and so much more.

Phee Phaw Yay, 75, lives in the Ayeyarwady region in Myanmar. She has six children, and three grandchildren. She is a widow – her husband passed away 25 years ago – and she now sells eggs and vegetables from a small shop at home to support herself.

Phee Phaw Yay lives in a small home with her son and his children. She told us that it is peaceful, and that the weather is nice when it rains but is very hot when it is dry. Her daily routine involves waking up early, reading the bible, prayers, and then working from her small home shop.

As she has become older, Phee Phaw Yay has faced many challenges, especially mobility issues. She sometimes has difficulty moving due to back and knee osteoarthritis.

The income she generates from selling eggs and vegetables is not much, and so she cannot afford the medications she needs, and instead relies on herbal medicines for common health problems.   

She is actively involved in a local, older person-led community group. As well as caring for her grandchildren often, she also volunteers as a health worker and fundraising leader in her village community.

"It is nice to be around people the same age as me," Phee Phaw Yay told us, "it helps me feel motivated and less lonely."

Asma is a carer, a mother, a grandmother and a pillar of her community.

Asma, 60, has worked most of her life, caring for her family and putting food on the table by washing clothes. The job is demanding, and has become more difficult as she has grown older.

Asma lost both her parents at age 10, and she then moved to Addis Ababa to be cared for by a relative. She worked as a housekeeper until she married. She lived with her husband and two children until her husband had an affair and stopped providing an income for their family. She divorced him and worked washing clothes for traders to cover her basic living costs.

She currently lives with ten family members in a home consisting of one and a half rooms.

Asma wakes at 5am to pray. She fetches water, prepares breakfast for her family, spends the day doing household chores or washing clothes to earn an income, then makes dinner and goes to sleep at 11pm.

“All the family members are dependent on my housework," Asma told us, "as I am cooking, cleaning the house although some of them, my children and brothers, are contributing financially. My grandchild, the son of my son and my two nieces are dependent on me completely. My nieces are supporting me in household chores after school.”

“I am happy as I am able to put food on the table and keep my family healthy and happy...”

Valentina is a volunteer cook, supporting others who have been displaced by conflict.

Valentina, 65, spent all her life in the quiet town of Irpin, just outside Kyiv.

Valentina stayed in the town for the first two weeks of the conflict. When she and her neighbours realised it would not pass as quickly as they had hoped, it was already too difficult to flee.

Valentina's first attempt to evacuate was with a small convoy of civilian vehicles that came under fire 20km south of Irpin. The car that Valentina was in got hit and rolled over. She finally made it out safely, cramped in a luggage compartment of a minibus.

Valentina spent the next three months housed in a school building in the Zakarpattia region of Ukraine, where displaced people received clothes, basic hygiene items and some financial support.

Valentina could not sit idly by. She started volunteering to cook food at one of the aid distribution points.

“I would even go to fight on the front if I could,” she says. “I feel bad about sitting at home while so many young people are out there in the cold.”