Niemat Ahmadi is a quiet badass. She is a native of North Darfur, founder and president of Darfur Women Action Group and the director of Global Partnerships for United to End Genocide and has been a friend and colleague for many years. She is soft-spoken but passionate when it comes...

While the movement for gender equality has secured women participation at ballot boxes across the globe, their votes are still in short supply at the world's decision making tables. An August study found that women hold a disappointing 16.1 percent of board of director seats in the U.S., 5.1 percent...

At a prayer breakfast in Port-au-Prince last month, 23 Haitian and U.S. women colleagues met to drink coffee, share a bite and, well, grieve. Our host, Danielle St. Lot, Haitian activist and entrepreneur, did not plan this grieving and we certainly did not expect it. The hour of laughter and...

Who knew a woman who runs around on TV with a gun and another who runs around in heels would have so much in common? We were brought together through a bizzare turn of events, and we discovered our mutual goal of empowering women using our own unique voices. We...

Voters in Haiti go to the polls on Sunday, March 20, 2011 to elect a new president and a new Parliament. Those elected will face daunting challenges as Haiti rebuilds itself: quake-related devastation, systemic poverty, ongoing crises in the delivery of basic services such as health care and education, and...

It's been an extraordinary year in Haiti. On this, the one year anniversary of the earthquake, we find time to reflect on what has been and what's to come. Besides the pain and suffering there have been great moments of joy and hope. Yesterday, much of the media is focusing...

A few days after the devastating earthquake in Haiti on January 12, 2010, I was on the Larry King show talking about the country that I love and had been working in for some years.

One of the celebrity guests who I shall not name was speaking for a...

Whatever anyone thinks of Wyclef Jean's bid for the presidency of Haiti, we can all agree on one thing: his potential running brought attention to the important elections in November for the devastated nation. Now, it seems the world is once again looking away. There is no news of the...

Urbans is a 7-year-old boy who lives in a makeshift shelter covered with bed sheets at the Petionville Displaced Person's Camp in Port-au-Prince where I (Maria) have worked for the last two months. The first day I met him, a week after the devastating earthquake on January 12,...

This is Part Three in a series of blog posts by Maria Bello, who is traveling with Artists For Peace And Justice in Haiti. Read Part One and Part Two of the series now.

It's almost impossible to explain what I have witnessed over the last week...

This is Part One in a series of blog posts by Maria Bello, who is traveling with Artists For Peace And Justice in Haiti. Read Part Two of the series now.

The acrid smell of death is not the first thing that hits you landing in Port-au-Prince. It is...

Today I begin my fast for Darfur. The Fast for Darfur began with Mia Farrow's 12 day hunger strike protesting the president of Sudan's decision to throw out of his country the NGO's who were the main suppliers of food to the Darfurian refugees. Mia ended her fast on doctor's...