Join Americans for UNFPA in promoting the health and dignity of women by attending the annual luncheon. The featured speaker at this event is Agnes Paeryio.

Agnes Pareyio is a Maasai woman born into a community where girls typically are forced to marry around age 14, which means the end of their education and the beginning of childbearing. Against her will, at age 14, Agnes was forced into female circumcision and early marriage. This experience changed her life, and she became a crusader against forced early marriage and the harmful practice of female genital cutting. She also became an advocate to keep girls in her community in school. She built the Tasaru Rescue Center, where girls fleeing cutting and/or early marriage can live and attend school until they can be reunited with their families. She says her biggest accomplishment has been "to secure gender equality, empowerment of women and the promotion of safer maternal health in my community."

Register for this event at the Americans for UNFPA website.