On this blog on Wednesdays, I like to celebrate wicked women who are rarely highlighted and the wicked awesome women who make the world a better place. Today, however, I'm going to celebrate a wicked awesome girl. Annie contacted me to nominate her niece, Eliza, for this Wicked Women Wednesday. 

Eliza is a Girl Scout. As a lifelong member of the Girl Scouts, I love hearing about other girls who use scouting to do amazing things. Eliza is trying to organize buddy benches at some surrounding schools for kids who have been bullied and need friends. The idea is to place the bench at the school's playground and anyone sitting there is in need of a friend. So Eliza wants to educate all the kids to watch and approach anyone sitting there and be friends with them. Annie reported that Eliza has had some set backs with the process but she's still working towards it.

Go Eliza! You're certainly a Wicked Awesome Woman on the rise. Bullying is a serious issue that should be addressed in schools. Keep working towards creating a better learning environment for yourself and others.

We'll all be cheering for you!

My only complaint is that it's in St. Cloud. I'm nowhere near St. Cloud. I want a mentor too. Times Media, can you sponsor one of these events in DC? Of course, I need two mentors - one for my day job as a fundraiser and one for my career as an author. I wonder if Publisher's Weekly or Preditors and Editors would want to sponsor something like this for authors...

Well, Japan may be behind the times, but between the U.S. and Singapore, Singapore might be winning when it comes to cultivating female leadership. Over 24% of their Parliament leaders are women. 

Over 650 Muslim women in India received leadership training under a new program. What a great idea! Why aren't we providing more training to minority women? I know we do some, but this program seems to be doing great things in a big way. We should learn from them.