The Transition Years Reflections and Refocus

2006 to 2009 was a transition period for Face to Face. After almost a decade of fundraising for and development of women's rights advocacy campaigns in 13 donor countries, the Face to Face team wasn't satisfied that we were doing all we could to improve the quality of life of the marginalized women we came to know in our work. We came to the conclusion that women in developing countries need the same thing that most women in developed countries have -- jobs or other legitimate income producing opportunities. With money, women can afford reproductive health care services, for example. And to those that would counter "there would be no such services available to many women even if they had the money or the means," we would remind them that all most businesses (and S&RHC is a business) need to successfully and sustainably establish themselves in any community is a population that can afford their products or services. In other words, show MSI the money and it will open up a clinic.

So, what did we do for almost three years? A lot of soul-searching, research into micro-businesses and financing, field visits (at our own expense) and ultimately the ground work that lead to the creation of Options for Life, LLC and the Options Mini-plant business system/model.