Women Championing women

Picture this: a fishing village in rural India, where horses wade into salt water every day to haul in fish and carry wood. 

These animals are a lifeline for their community, but what about when they get sick or injured? 

Meet Safura, an “Ashwasaki” (friend of equines) who shows people how to clean the horse’s hooves and treat irritated skin. “When the horse fell sick, everyone fell sick,” she says. 

As we approach International Women’s Day 2026, women at Brooke celebrate women like Safura - often unseen experts, carers, communicators and leaders in places that depend on working animals for survival. 

Because animal welfare and gender equality go hand in hand. 

Working animals are economic lifelines. When an animal is healthy, a family earns income. When an animal is injured or exhausted, the consequences can be immediate and severe. 

Women are often the primary caregivers for both their animals and household. But without equal access to resources, training and decision-making power, their ability to protect those animals is constrained. 

Eleni Garedew, Senior Manager of Global Community Development at Brooke, believes that if we want sustainable improvements in animal welfare, we must address the deep-rooted gender inequalities around the world.

“In many of the animal-reliant communities where we work, patriarchal systems limit women’s mobility, decision-making power and access to training opportunities,” she says.  

“Simply inviting women into existing structures is not enough. We must ask: how can we create a world where women’s voices and power to believe in their own abilities can support animal welfare?” 

In some areas, a female veterinary professional is still an unfamiliar sight. There are assumptions that animal health is “men’s work”.  

There are practical challenges too - from travelling safely to remote communities, to earning the trust of male animal owners, who are often the decision-makers.  

Dr Hala Tahir, a Community Animal Healthcare Officer working in Pakistan, has seen how inclusive learning reshapes not only individual careers, but animal welfare too.

“Learning grows when it is shared and inclusive learning is transformative,” she says.  

For Dr Hala, International Women’s Day is about visibility as much as celebration. Learning should be “informative and ensure gender inclusion by giving equal access to technical training for both female and male professionals.” 

“My work is not only about treating animals, but to prove that leadership in the field is defined by skill and commitment, not by gender.” 

For years, development programmes have focused on “including” women. But inclusion is not the same as transformation. 

A gender transformative approach means challenging the norms that restrict women’s roles and decision-making in animal healthcare and community leadership. It means working with men and community leaders as allies.  

It means creating safe spaces and enabling a work environment where women can build confidence, technical skills and a collective voice. 

This supports the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender Equality, which calls for greater recognition of the unpaid labour of women. Which can include caring for livestock.  

When women gain access to animal welfare information, knowledge and confidence in animal welfare, the impact ripples outward - to their animals, their families and their wider communities. 

International Women’s Day is a celebration, but it is also a call to action. 

To truly transform animal welfare in the communities we serve, we need gender transformative approaches that challenge inequality at its roots. We need as many people as possible to help shine a light on these unseen experts and animal care givers. 

Most importantly, we need to listen - to the extraordinary women who are already championing change every day.