Dr. Marcia Hill (right) with her mother Marcia L. Hinz-Hill (left) in whose honor she established a WiLD endowment for Heifer

Empowering Women
Through Self-Sufficiency

A Personal Commitment

by Dr. Marcia Hill

This story brings together three threads: my mother's life and death, my own life, and Heifer International. My name is Marcia Hill. I'm a psychologist and a feminist therapist. Working as a therapist has certainly taught me something about the suffering caused by a world that treats very few people. If you haven't already guessed, I came of age in the U.S. in the 1960s. Changing the way the world works still seems to me the most important thing any of us can do.

Recently, I've been thinking about how best to change the world with the modest amount of money that I can offer to organizations. I've never particularly supported the arts, the local hospital or the Red Cross - though these are all good causes. I want my money to make a difference in a more profound way, and to address some of the fundamental inequities in this world. It seemed to me that at the deepest level, what is most unfair is the way that resources are distributed. Someone who is too poor to eat well or to afford school cannot hope to have many other life choices and cannot expect to have influence.

Women and their children always seem to end up near the bottom of the heap. It's well known that, in general, the countries that do well are those that treat women well. I want my money to go to organizations that help poor women become fed, become independent and become educated. We all need those women. We cannot continue to manage the world based on the priorities of those who are primarily Western, male, and capitalist. It's just not working.

This brings me to my mother, Marcia L. Hinz Hill (I'm named for her). Mom was never as explicitly political as I am, but she was one of the kindest people I've known. She worked as a nurse, and (with my Dad) raised four children. She also had a sense of social justice, and joined with others in an effort to unionize the nurses at the hospital where she was employed. After she retired, she continued to volunteer at the local hospital. She died suddenly and unexpectedly in October of 1994, and I still miss her daily.

Establishing an endowment to support Heifer's Women in Livestock Development program has seemed to me to be the perfect way to honor my Mom. All the Heifer programs are a form of social justice, a beginning way to change the world's unequal distribution of resources - a way to change the way the world works. "Passing on the gift" is the best part of Heifer because it not only creates ever-widening circles of influence, but because it honors people's dignity. The WILD programs in particular speak to justice for women, speak to the balance of power between the sexes, and speak to those changes in the welfare of women that are fundamental to the welfare of everyone.

I am not a wealthy woman by U.S. standards, but compared to much of the world, I am incredibly fortunate. I really do have everything I need, and it is a joy, not a hardship, to ask my family to give me donations to Mom's Heifer endowment fund as Christmas gifts. My Dad is planning to include the endowment in his will and I will do the same. In giving to Heifer, I am also "passing the gift" of my own good fortune.
I am certain my mother would have loved it. In my mind's eye, I see a village somewhere where women are treated better because of Heifer's gender equity work, and I can think of no greater honor to my mother than to have helped to make that happen. I think of some woman I will never meet who gains economic independence: this is a tribute to my mother's life. I imagine that long after I and my memories of my mother are gone, the granddaughter of that woman will perhaps have an education, a real chance at life, because of my mother's life. It is unbelievably comforting. I am grateful beyond words for the opportunity to support the work of Heifer and to memorialize my mother in this way. Thank you so much.

Legacies of Love

A Donor's View...

A Good Will

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