Happy First Anniversary for Eleanor Lives!; Happy International Women’s Day! The two are intertwined and both are worth celebrating. It was a year ago today, on March 8, 2020, that we launched Eleanor Lives!
As the year 2020 began there was hope that the coincidence of the date, 2020, with the standard for good eyesight 20-20, might be a harbinger of a new perspective for humanity.
It arrived, but in an unexpected manner. As initial preparations were made in January and February for a new nonprofit, Eleanor Lives!, to carry on and implement her legacy, and bring our international community together, that community was thrust into a pandemic, Covid 19. With millions dead, and more dying, we realize as Eleanor said “we all go up or down together.”
Rather than give up, or postpone, following Eleanor’s advice not to give up in difficult times, we launched. Humans don’t last forever, but if they are as powerful and genuine as Eleanor, their ideas, and theirs plans to implement those ideas, continue.
It’s nice to celebrate this day by considering how our work impacts women. Eleanor was a great leader. While girls today are gaining an awareness of women leaders, for the most part, if people are asked about great leaders they tend to think more of men. Eleanor Lives! helps correct this imbalance by continuing the legacy, and spreading awareness, of one of the great women leaders in history.
Eleanor’s ceaseless work for equality for women was grounded in the idea that women, in all countries, should have the same opportunities as men. This concept begins with children. She said: 
“It is wise, I think, to teach children that intrinsically every human being has the same value . . . and [to] work toward a world where every individual may have the chance to develop his abilities to the greatest possible extent.”
For Eleanor, it was not enough to proclaim equality, it had to be established as an enforceable right. Eleanor thought of economic and social rights on a par with civil and political rights, and so does Eleanor Lives! The practical effect of the inequality of rights has been the denial of economic and social rights, particularly for women.
The draft International Bill of Rights, which is the foundation stone for Eleanor Lives!, helps address these inequalities and further the movement for enforcement of all rights.
So please join us in celebration of both International Women’s Day, and the Anniversary of Eleanor Lives! If you have not become a light for rights on our website, please do so now. Women’s rights are on the assencion. You can blow out a candle, but you cannot blow out a flame.
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