Rwandan government recognizes church member for empowering women

Holly Hixson, Rwanda-based coordinator of Peace Through Business, and Jeanne d’Arc Mujawamariya, Rwanda’s minister of gender and family promotion, at the graudation. (Photo via /www.newtimes.co.rw)

New Times, Rwanda’s leading newspaper, featured Holly Hixson in a front-page story about Peace Through Business, an initiative she helps administer in the African nation.

At least 24 women, over the weekend, graduated in Peace Through Business (PTB) programme. This was the fourth class to graduate under this programme.
Organised annually, the PTB programme selects 30 women who are extensively trained in doing business.
Fifteen of the graduates are then sent to spend a month in the U.S. to acquire additional business training, mentorship and networking opportunities.

Read the full story.
Hixson is a former chemistry professor at Oklahoma Christian University. She and her husband, Bryan, are supported by the Quail Springs Church of Christ in Oklahoma City.

• Feedback
  Is there any particular reason that such ministries focus on women? In developing countries, we can hardly assume that the men are all doing fine. Yet, so many charitable efforts I read about in the Third World are centered entirely around women, and not just in our church efforts (micro-financing, for example). Many men in countries such as Rwanda need to be taught and encouraged to step up and be the men that God intended them to be in their families and in their societies.

  Clark Coleman

  April, 12 2011

  Holly, we are so proud of the work you are doing with PTB and are glad that OC was involved in starting the program for Rwandan women. Terry Neese shared with me how pleased she is to have you working with IEEW on this program. May God bless you in this good work. Mike E. O’Neal, President, Oklahoma Christian University.

  Mike E. O’Neal

  April, 12 2011