Suggested Hymns:
The Lord Is My Shepherd (Hymns 108)
I Know That My Redeemer Lives (Hymns 136)
Because I Have Been Given Much (Hymns 219)

Read:
Ask each family member to come to home evening prepared to read one or more scriptures that show God's concern for widows.

Discuss:
Why do widows appear so often in the scriptures as poor?

Read:
"Poverty's face is feminine. Women account for as much as 70 percent of the world's poor. . . . Women often lack certain rights--to own and/or inherit land, to acquire credit--essential for conservation and opportunity." (Source: United Nations Population Fund)

"A study of 74 developing countries found that one in five households is headed by a woman: they are either widowed, divorced, separated or abandoned. These women are trapped in a downward spiral of poverty. Forces beyond their control are pressing them further into poverty every year. Yet the poorer they become the harder they have to work to support their children." (Source: International Fund for Agricultural Development)

"Older women are more likely to be poor than older men. The accumulated impact of lower lifetime earnings, lower pensions, lower social status, and weaker access to property and to inheritance contributes to disproportionate poverty among older women. Never-married or widowed older women are most severely affected." (Source: United Nations Population Fund)

"Studies repeatedly show that investment in educating girls and women raises every index of progress towards sustainable economic growth and development. Despite this, an estimated two thirds of the 300 million children without access to education are girls, and two thirds of the some 880 million illiterate adults are women." (Source: United Nations Population Fund)

"It is clear from several studies that increased earning power of women has a greater and more immediate effect on family welfare than increased earnings for men. A study in South India, for example, found that while women kept barely any income for their exclusive personal use, men kept up to 26 per cent." (Source: United Nations Population Fund)

"Discrepancies in pay [between men and women] are often more entrenched in developed countries [than in developing countries]. For example, in Kenya women's average wages in non-agricultural employment are 84 per cent of men's, while in Japan women earn only 51 per cent of what men earn." (Source: United Nations Population Fund)

"[T]he type of jobs single heads of household can get depends on their level of education. Often, women have low levels of education and they get low skill level jobs that pay low wages. To further exacerbate the financial stress many jobs [in the United States] pay women 60% of the income they pay men for doing the same job. (Source: Ohio State University)

Discuss:
Why does poverty hit women so especially hard?
What can be done to help women--and their families--escape poverty?

Activity:
Consider holding a special family fast sometime during March (International Women's Month) as a gesture of solidarity with impoverished women and their families. You might find it appropriate to hold this fast on or around March 17, the anniversary of the founding of the Relief Society. Following the fast, make a special offering to an organization that works to improve educational or economic opportunities for women--for example, a program that offers microcredit to women in developing countries, or a political organization that promotes gender equity.