[power of education]
Dozens of girls were gathered for a workshop in a concrete classroom in Kampala, Uganda, when one 11-year-old announced her mother was trying to marry her off in exchange for a dowry. That’s the kind of situation Lynne Reif encountered when she traveled to the East African nation in 2012. Reif, a Webster Groves school counselor, was there with fellow St. Louisan Therese Cristiani for Empowering Young Women, a nonprofit they run to educate girls and provide mental health care. “This is part of a global movement,” Cristiani says.
Empowering Young Women began in 1991, when Cristiani, then a professor of counseling and family therapy at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, started a series of conferences for St. Louis girls. In 2010, she received an invitation to visit Uganda from Fiona Mirembe Kiggundu, a preschool director there who runs an after-school program for orphaned girls. “She was actually doing a version of Empowering Young Women that we were doing here,” Cristiani says, adding that she was so inspired, she broadened the mission of her nonprofit to support female education, health and well-being in Uganda.
Reif explains that there are many barriers keeping Ugandan girls from finishing school, such as lack of access to feminine hygiene products and inability to buy required school uniforms. Nearly 47 percent of them are married before age 18, according to the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative, often for dowry money. Several thousand are orphans, a large proportion of whom lost their parents to AIDS. As a result, Cristiani says, “Many of these girls are living in homes where they are not wanted, with distant relatives.” And there are few social services available to help them.
But their disadvantages don’t prevent them from dreaming big. “These girls are passionate,” Reif says. “They embrace education. They see it as a privilege. They treat anyone who supports them as an angel.”
Building a women’s center in Uganda is the most pressing goal of Empowering Young Women. The facility would offer educational materials, provide living space for kids in emergency situations and serve as an internship site for college students studying mental health. Cristiani and Reif also hope to encourage the study of counseling in Uganda; in 2012, they taught an intensive two-week course on the subject at Makerere University in Kampala.
“There’s a lot of awareness about the importance of educating girls in the developing world,” Reif says. “With that they can be healthier people, become better mothers and do that at an appropriate age.”
[reaping the harvest]
Two sisters from the city inherit a large cattle farm in the Ozarks. It sounds like the start of a culture-shock sitcom, but where some might find humor, Steffie Littlefield and Cyndy Keesee saw opportunity. After years of puzzling over what to do with the family land in Potosi, Mo., the siblings planted a vineyard and turned their estate into a thriving winery. “It’s a complete business from the ground up—literally,” says Littlefield. “It’s been a fun learning experience.”
Ninety minutes south of St. Louis, near a bend in the Fourche a Renault Creek, Andrew S. Knapp founded Edg-Clif ranch nearly 80 years ago. His granddaughters, Littlefield and Keesee, spent their weekdays in school at Mary Institute and their weekends on the farm, watching him manage his 3,000 acres. They inherited the property in 1986. “We found ourselves owners of a cattle ranch and not in a position to run it at the time,” Littlefield says. To hold onto it, they leased it to a neighboring bison farm.
An afternoon visit to a winery near Ste. Genevieve inspired Littlefield to pursue grape growing. A landscape designer by trade, she figured she could plant a vineyard to help defray the farm’s upkeep costs. “I wanted something that would add value back to the property,” Littlefield says. Her sister, who was living in Colorado at the time, was receptive. “She said, ‘I think I’d like to move back and be part of this,’” Littlefield recalls.
They enlisted professional help by touring wineries across the state, taking classes and requesting an assessment from a University of Missouri agricultural extension agent, who thought their terrior was perfect. “We’re in a little microclimate that is well-suited to this,” Littlefield says. The first grapes were planted in 2008 and the first harvest came in 2010. All five wines submitted to the Missouri Governor’s Cup in 2011 received medals.
By their second year in production, the operation was paying for itself. Littlefield is in charge of the viticulture and Keesee oversees the wine-making. “I’ve always been the resident cook,” Keesee says. “I have a good palate and a good nose. Those are really important when you’re making wine.” Their husbands contribute plenty of help, and Littlefield’s middle daughter, a marketing professional, designs bottle labels that incorporate images of vintage Edg-Clif buildings. A barn-turned-tasting room is in the works. Edg-Clif wines are sold at The Wine Merchant, Friar Tuck and the Webster Groves Straub’s, as well as at summer food truck events in town.
Reviving their family farm has given Littlefield and Keesee great satisfaction. “I feel inspired by the land itself, and what has gone before us,” Keesee says. “We’re proud we’ve found a wonderful use for that property.”
Pictured: Lynne Reif with Zainabu