Ermayulis: cleaning our Padang office and cooking healthy lunches since it opened in 2008.

Phavorine: doing the same for our Haiti team since 2010. 

Cici: started out as a translator in 2006 and worked her way to the position of deputy program manager in our Indonesia office.   

Dominique: handling HR in Haiti, the second person we hired there after the earthquake in 2010 and an earthquake survivor herself.  

Minouche, Mardoch�e, Chardeline and Alexandra: our senior-most Haitian engineers, fantastic team leaders and the people who make impacts happen in Haiti.     

Chen Ting, Huang Yan and Wan Wei: three strong women who led our high-impact program in China after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake.

Yenyfer: our first Colombian engineer, working on retrofitting houses in Colombia before the next earthquake.

Dieuvena: extremely dedicated, hardworking and becoming a more experienced accountant every day in our Haiti office.    

Nakashima and Emmanuella: our new Haitian engineer interns, growing into skilled professionals.

Melya: making sure we stay on budget in Indonesia, and always a positive force.   

Fia: with us in Indonesia since 2008, first as part of our technical team and now the only woman on the impact monitoring team. Fia is also a new mom.

Winda: our hardworking operations staff, travel guru and mom-to-be.  

Tati, Ani and Dani: our newest engineers in Indonesia, all women; some are overseeing the seven new female mobile extension workers in Aceh.   

Sri Agustina: helping Melya make sure all of our finances are in order. She deserves a standing ovation for her hard work; we forget she's new sometimes. 

Nofri Yani: started out as an office assistant and impressed me so much on my last trip to Aceh with her outgoing personality and ability to get things done. She was recently promoted to communications and advocacy officer.

Anna: working closely with us through a partner agency. We're so pleased she will join our team in Haiti in a few weeks. 

Elrica: crossing borders from Haiti, where she started on our technical team, to Indonesia, where she is managing the conversion of our paper checklists to a tablet-based system. 

Christine: head of our Indonesia program, the first woman to hold the post since I started the program there in 2005. 

Lizzie: a very fine structural engineer and extremely hard worker, leading our housing technical assistance programs in Haiti.  

Aline: heading up our better block manufacturing program in Haiti, combining technical expertise with business model sense.  

Kate: bringing in big grants in Haiti and writing excellent reports, now leading our partnership development in the Philippines.

Allison, Jen and Kiki: our fearless fund development team based in Denver.

Trish: leading our HR and recruiting efforts in Denver.

Jaci: who takes care of nearly everything else.

I am proud that women make up 46% of the entire Build Change team, 50% of management positions and 33% of technical positions. Some of the women on our team have shared why they enjoy working in the construction industry. You can also learn about the difference our technical training has made for women in China, Haiti and Indonesia.  

Please join me in celebrating International Women's Day. Together we can empower more women engineers, builders, brickmakers and homeowners.

Thank you,

Elizabeth Hausler Strand

Founder & CEO

Build Change