The Voluntary Fund for the United Nations Decade for Women

Crippled by poverty, lack of education and training opportunities, millions of women across the world are locked into a life-style of unskilled, under-productive and unpaid labour. The Voluntary Fund for the United Nations Decade for Women, established following International Women's Year in 1975, supports projects in developing countries which help rural and poor urban women acquire the skills and resources they need to realize their potential. Financed by governments, public and private organizations, by 1981, the Fund had initiated 238 projects in Asia, the Pacific, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. But fresh resources are vital to enable the Fund to develop its programme and pinpoint new areas of need.

Literacy class at the Soba Training Centre for Women, a government-run centre near Khartoum that has received help from the Voluntary Fund for the United Nations Decade for Women. [Exact date unknown]