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Writing about upsetting experiences can improve both mental and physical health, researchers have found.

Studies show that people who hold in major secrets are more likely to have health problems compared to those who do not. This is what led University of Texas (UT) psychiatry professor James Pennebaker to explore expressive, or therapeutic, writing as a solution for dealing with trauma in the 1980s. He thought writing might be better than talking because it would allow people to be honest about their experiences without worrying about what others thought.

Over the course of two decades, there have been 200 published studies on expressive writing, according to an article in the Independent Practitioner from 2010. The Pennebaker Language Lab, which published the first study on expressive writing in 1986, held writing sessions in a laboratory setting where participants would come in to write about upsetting experiences. The writing exercises lasted 15 minutes each day for three or four days. Afterward, the lab tracked the health records of the participants. In one study, participants who wrote about their traumatic experiences went to the health center at about half the rate of the control group, Pennebaker said.

But the benefits are not associated only with physical health.

“People after writing, if they had lost their jobs, were more likely to get jobs again more quickly, probably because they resolve (their) issues,” Pennebaker said. “People who write about upsetting experiences sleep better and make better grades.”

Ryan Boyd, psychology postdoctoral fellow, said he saw similar results in his work with UT psychiatry professor Cindy Meston on expressive writing for victims of childhood sexual abuse. Study participants were asked to write about their sexual experiences over the course of several sessions. Boyd, who also works with Pennebaker, uses linguistic tools such as the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count to categorize words people use into different clusters such as positive emotion words, social words and pronouns. These patterns help identify different psychological phenomena.

Text analysis revealed the initial language patterns of the sexual abuse victims to be typical of depression and insecurity, Boyd said. But over the course of the study, a change happened.

“Their language came to look more and more like the group that had never been abused,” Boyd said. “The language seemed like it was less depressed, less hypersexual. So, it seemed to be the case that as they were writing about this and kind of working through this in their heads, they start to think about it more and more like an average healthy adult who has never been abused.”

Pennebaker advised students to utilize expressive writing as a tool whenever something is plaguing them or causing them to lose sleep, especially if they don’t feel comfortable talking about it with others.

“Explore your deepest thoughts and feelings in your writing,” Pennebaker said. “Tie it into other things in your life. Did something like this happen in the past? Is it related to your parents, to your family, to your feelings about yourself? Is it associated with school, or who you’d like to be in the future or who you have been in the past? This writing is for you and you alone, so be brutally honest in terms of what’s going on.”

Read more on DailyTexanOnline.com.

Marvel’s Black Panther is a cultural phenomenon, a historic box office success that’s brought in rave reviews and sparked conversation all over social media and traditional media alike. There are no signs of the excitement abating, either, as the conversation about the film has evolved from discussions about the importance of representation into something grander: a rather groundbreaking celebration of black culture.

With an all-star collection of majority black talent both in front of and behind the camera, Black Panther, under the direction of Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station, Creed), is about more than the latest superhero’s journey; it’s also about black culture’s journey, and it points toward a future where it could be the culture. It acknowledges and celebrates everything from traditional African society to African-American political debates, from the power and beauty of black women to the preservation of identity, all within the lush confines of the fictional African nation of Wakanda.

All told, Black Panther’s greatest legacy may not be what it’s done for Marvel, Hollywood, or box office records, but what it’s done for the culture. In Wakanda, which offers much to marvel at for audiences of all backgrounds, black viewers in particular have found a cultural oasis that feels like nothing we’ve seen before.

Black Panther celebrates black culture on several fronts

Black Panther is in many ways a love letter to black culture. Africa has traditionally been an unsophisticated bit player in American media, often portrayed as backward, savage, and chaotic in everything from news coverage to films. It’s a portrayal that has left little room for other interpretations, which is why Black Panther’s vision of Wakanda as a bustling metropolis of vibranium-powered futuristic skyscrapers, racing trains, and soaring spaceships feels so refreshing.

Marvel movies often take place in grand, imaginative locales, like Thor’s Asgard or Guardians of the Galaxy’s far-flung planets. But nothing has been quite as audacious and poignant as Wakanda, a vision of Africa that feels indebted to both Jack Kirby and Octavia Butler, home to a thriving black population that represents our collective ingenuity and beauty. As a testament to black empowerment, Black Panther is an important artifact, but it’s also, quite simply, a big draw for black moviegoers starved for this sort of vision.

It’s not just Wakanda’s skyline that makes an impact, though; the film drew on a team of designers and stylists to showcase a very specific, beautiful black aesthetic. In an interview with the New York Times, Camille Friend, who oversaw the various hair designs of what she calls “a totally Afrocentric, natural hair movie,” said the entire production was considered against a backdrop of a bigger black cultural moment: “We’re in a moment when people are feeling empowered about being black,” she says. “The hair helps communicate that.”

Like the film’s hair, Black Panther’s costuming was an opportunity to infuse meaning and pride into the movie. As the film’s head costume designer, Ruth Carter, shared with NPR, the costumes, like Wakanda itself, needed to evoke a place and people that had “never been colonized, one that looked toward the future but was based on a real past.”

Carter and her team drew on Kenyan, Namibian, and South African reference points to complete the film’s array of looks, reflecting not only the tribal diversity that exists within Wakanda but the diversity of black culture and identity as well. The film is a crucial stamp of validation for black people hungry for the opportunity to celebrate everything from Afrofuturism to the natural hair movement that’s often been derided in mainstream spaces.

The care and intricacy of the film’s styling carried a heavy price tag, with Marvel committing more money to Black Panther than its previous few films in order to achieve a visual splendor that’s as exciting to the culture as it is to the eye. The result is the sort of spectacle black moviegoers rarely get to see in popular mainstream culture. That isn’t lost on Marvel’s Kevin Feige, who explained his reasoning behind the film’s budget to Vulture: “It’s a big story that deserves to be told in a big way, for all of the cultural and political reasons that people talk about.”

These vague “cultural and political reasons” are at the heart of a movie phenomenon that’s inspired everything from Black Panther-themed watch parties to a voter registration initiative to a curriculum that encourages educators to leverage the film to teach deeper histories about African culture, politics, and history. It’s also opened up dialogues and personal reflections about black identity in America and abroad via #WhatBlackPantherMeansToMe, a powerful cross section of editorial and real-time reflections on the film’s resonance with black moviegoers.

The film has also jumped into the current of black political thought and action, prompting challenging think pieces about how T’Challa and Killmonger’s rift is representative of familiar ideological debates in the black community, and what the film’s politics represent about the state of black America. In addition to escapism and inspiration, Black Panther offers African Americans the opportunity to reexamine and reimagine their place in the world, both literally and figuratively. Wakanda has emerged as a vision of what’s possible, representing what true liberation could look like, but the power of that fantasy is directly linked to the harsh realities of Erik Killmonger’s experience growing up in Oakland, California, far away from that utopic vision.

Black Panther is part of a wave of entertainment that’s expanding the scope of black narratives

The excitement around Black Panther doesn’t exist in a vacuum; the film is the latest in a string of high-water-mark moments for a black pop culture landscape that’s experiencing a renaissance. Recent years have seen a new level of black art that’s intertwined sociopolitical commentary with high-caliber artistry: from Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN to Atlanta and Queen Sugar, there’s been a renewed focus on telling stories that broaden and sharpen the range of black narratives.

This expansion is significant given black audiences’ complex relationship with Hollywood, which has typically presented a narrow slice of the African-American narrative. It’s an industry that has often seemed invested in black Americans primarily as slaves (12 Years a Slave), victims of inner-city strife (Detroit), or symbols of comfort (The Help) and is fixated on stories about the post-Reconstruction and civil rights eras and biopics of famous black people that only glimpse at race.

For a long time, it’s felt like the only stories about the African-American experience Hollywood was interested in telling were stories that were intertwined in some way with the white experience, making this shift toward stories that center black narratives as black narratives feel both welcome and long overdue.

A similar shift has been afoot in Hollywood offscreen in recent years. As #OscarsSoWhite launched a debate about the industry’s fidelity to representation and valuing nonwhite contributions, filmmakers like Moonlight’s Barry Jenkins, A Wrinkle in Time’s Ava DuVernay, and Get Out’s Jordan Peele have taken crucial pole positions as visionaries who are pushing the boundaries of black representation on film. Coogler’s Black Panther joins these projects as a missing piece: a popcorn movie that uses the most mainstream of film genres — the superhero movie — to project the complexity of black identity, politics, and creativity.

Black Panther is in many ways an antidote to the black American experience in 2018

The renewed conversation around race that Black Panther enters into extends beyond the entertainment industry. As the first black superhero film in a cinematic universe that’s spent the past decade focused primarily on white superheroes, it underlines the chasm that exists between society’s treatment of black Americans and white Americans. 

In many ways, black bodies have experienced a renewed series of attacks in recent years. Black NFL players can’t kneel in protest without recrimination from team owners, or a conservative-leaning fan base. Everyday black citizens have been increasingly displaced in gentrifying cities, locked up in prisons at alarming rates, and shot and beaten by law enforcement at equally high ones.

This makes Black Panther a palate cleanser of sorts, a healthy injection of powerful, beautiful images of the black body. It’s what’s behind the lure of Wakanda, a land of black vibrancy, freedom, diversity, and discourse not blighted by outside forces or forced to negotiate with anyone but themselves. It’s why the Killmonger/T’Challa chasm rings so true, as they both offer their own type of wish fulfillment for black viewers: Wouldn’t it be nice to have a world where we aren’t encumbered by systemic racism and oppression and are masters of our own destiny? And yet wouldn’t it also be nice to galvanize a community with resources and political might to address and maybe even reverse the effects of that systemic oppression?

Told from a posture of power and pride, Black Panther is in many ways a most necessary antidote for the black American experience in 2018, an elixir that provides escape into a world where black Americans can imagine these conversations outside of the white gaze. It’s invaluable to be reminded that we still have the ability to soar and take action like T’Challa or Nakia or Okoye, to be strong black bodies of justice. The value of that reminder is not just timely — it’s timeless.

Read more on Vox.com.

The Rev. Talitha Arnold was just 2 years old when her father, a World War II veteran, took his own life.

“You just didn’t talk about those things back then. We didn’t even talk about suicide when I was in the seminary,” says Arnold, who leads the United Church of Santa Fe in New Mexico.

Then, when the wife of one of her divinity school professors killed herself and no one muttered a word about it during the service, Arnold says she was appalled. “I was sitting there thinking, ‘This was nuts. Why can’t you name it?’ ” That was almost 40 years ago.

In the United States alone, someone dies by suicide once every 13 minutes. For the longest time, there was a cloak of secrecy about the details of a death by suicide, but talking about suicide may be the best hope for stopping it, according to researchers.

Until recently, many religious leaders were not well-prepared to talk about suicide with their congregants. Now some clergy have become an important part of suicide prevention.

“Where there’s faith, there’s hope, and where there’s hope, there’s life,” says David Litts, co-leader of the Faith Communities Task Force of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention.

Arnold also leads that task force. “If someone dies from heart disease, for instance, or in an accident, they may wonder where God is, but when someone dies by suicide, a whole lot of other questions get raised,” she says. “When you can’t talk about this in church, then it feels like God can’t talk about it either.”

But in her church, she says, there isn’t shame surrounding suicide. During the pastoral prayer, for instance, she says she lifts up congregants dealing with cancer, heart disease or mental health issues. “It’s a way of signaling to people this is a safe place to talk about such things and be honest about them.”

In 2015, Barbara Bauer lost her 19-year-old son to suicide. She says her church, in Lake Forest, Calif., was a source of comfort. Her pastor’s son had killed himself just two years earlier. “Anybody who loses a child by suicide has some kind of guilt,” she says. “Our church is very open to people and not judgmental. I felt we could be very real. We could cry. We could lament what might have been and what we could have done differently.”

Looking beyond suicide as a sin

Historically, in many faiths, suicide has been considered a sin. Parishioners were stranded from finding solace in their houses of worship after a loved one died by suicide. Many faith leaders across the country have changed their understanding of suicide and mental illness through extensive training and peer support.

“Mental illnesses are not spiritual weaknesses or failure of faith,” says Dr. Farha Abbasi, assistant professor of psychiatry at Michigan State University. She is also the director of the Muslim Mental Health Conference, which strives to dispel myths and cut through the fears that some Muslim Americans have around mental health.

She has worked with more than 100 imams to educate them in basic mental health and suicide prevention and trauma-informed care. She says it can be easy for imams to get overwhelmed by the demands of their congregations, which can include large populations of immigrants and refugees.

“We’re now thinking differently,” says Imam Sohail Chaudhry of the Islamic Center of East Lansing, Mich., which has about 1,500 congregants. “In the past, we would jump to thinking of jinn, or spirit possession, as the only thing happening to a person in cases where they lost their ability to rationalize and make decisions. Now we understand that mental illness may be incapacitating that person,” he says.

In 2012, roughly 23 percent of the nation’s houses of worship provided mental health programming. That is according to the most recent data provided by a regularly conducted survey of American congregations, the National Congregations Study. Those services may include mental health ministries, special youth and adult programs, sermons and planned series of expert speakers on mental health concerns.

That percentage is up significantly from 2006, when only 8 percent of congregations reported sponsoring mental health programming.

The unique position of faith leaders

“Faith leaders have always been in a position to help whoever comes in their doors. One thing we found in our study was that certain congregational characteristics made a difference,” says Eunice Wong, a behavioral scientist at the Rand Corp. and lead author of a recent study that analyzed data from the last wave of the NCS study.

One of many takeaways from the research was that congregations in predominantly African-American neighborhoods are more likely to sponsor mental health programming because their congregants are less likely to seek mental health treatment.

“It’s definitely true that pastors have been challenged to become more qualified to address mental health issues,” says Maurice Porter of Shiloh Baptist Church in Hartford, Conn., which is primarily African-American. “I’m sure there is more that can be done, but in my church, during weekly Bible studies, we always talk about specific issues we’re going through emotionally and mentally.”

When he sees a congregant in emotional pain, he says he tries to craft sermons around whatever issues they’re going through because that is the time when everyone is assembled and listening.

And the same is true at Temple Aliyah in Woodland Hills, Calif., where Rabbi Ben Goldstein, who is also on Faith Communities Task Force, says he has experienced the toll of mental illness in his temple life and in his home life.

“People talk about mental health in whispers. I think there’s definitely a fear to say what’s going on. Our job on the task force is to eliminate that,” he says.

In a recent High Holy Days sermon on the topic, he told congregants, “To all of those who are suffering from mental illness, know this: You are not alone. You are never alone. All you need to do is ask for help. Here, in this community, you will always have someone to whom you can look, to whom you can talk.”

Read more on NPR.org.

The following post was written by and from the perspective of Nicole Greene, the Acting Director Office on Women’s Health and shared on the Office of Women’s Health website.

We have seen tremendous improvements in HIV treatment and prevention over the past few decades. While we want to celebrate this progress, we also need to discuss how it can lead people to falsely believe that HIV is no longer a serious health issue. People across the country — including women — continue to get and transmit HIV regardless of age, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. In the United States, about one quarter of people living with HIV are women, and in 2016, women accounted for 1 in 5 HIV diagnoses.

My message is simple: HIV is still a very real problem, but it is preventable.

On March 10, we observe National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day to shed light on the impact HIV and AIDS have on women and girls. It’s also a time to remember that every single one of us has a role to play in HIV prevention — women, men, health professionals, those who are HIV-negative, and those who are HIV-positive. There are simple steps we can take to protect ourselves, our partners, and our patients from HIV infection and transmission. Here’s how:

If you’re HIV-negative:

• Get a free, confidential HIV test. Visit gettested.cdc.gov to find a testing location. Make sure you know your partner’s status, too — before you have sex.
• Practice safe sex. Use condoms every time you have sex.
• Talk to your doctor about pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) if you have an HIV-positive partner. PrEP is a daily pill that can reduce your risk of getting HIV from sex by more than 90%.
• Visit a doctor right away if you think you may have been exposed to HIV. The doctor may decide that you should get post-exposure prophylaxis, also known as PEP. PEP is an anti-HIV medicine that may lower your chances of getting HIV after you have been exposed to the virus.

If you’re HIV-positive:

• Take care of your health and visit your doctor regularly.
• Aim to achieve and maintain an undetectable viral load by taking your medication as prescribed and for at least 6 months. Having an undetectable viral load means that you are much less likely to transmit HIV to a partner.
• Educate your partner about PrEP and PEP, if they are HIV-negative.

If you’re a health care professional:

• Know the HIV screening recommendations and implement them, as appropriate.
• Talk to your patients about their HIV risk and how to practice safe sex.
• Know when to recommend PrEP and PEP to HIV-negative patients.
• Work closely with HIV-positive patients to encourage them to stay healthy and help them adhere to their treatment. Also, if they’re sexually active, educate them about PrEP and PEP.

I hope you joined us this National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day — and will continue beyond — by taking steps to protect yourself and the people you love. We need you, because we all have a role to play in preventing HIV. Visit www.womenshealth.gov/nwghaad to get more ideas on what you can do to stop HIV and AIDS.

Learn more on WomensHealth.gov.

Mike Marjama currently has a successful career as an American baseball catcher for the Seattle Mariners, but he once struggled with an eating disorder that threatened his ability to play the sport he loves. As a teen, Marjama attended Granite Bay High School in California and later played baseball for California State University. While in high school, Marjama developed an eating disorder that eventually led to inpatient treatment. 

Today, Marjama is open about his personal experience with an eating disorder to inspire others, especially men and boys, to seek to help and support they deserve. Read more of his story in his interview with the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA):

National Eating Disorders Association: Can you tell us about your struggles with food and exercise?

Mike Marjama: From a very early age, my goal was to mirror the image of the “media norm” for a male physique. The images on Abercrombie & Fitch bags set the bar for me on how my body should look. In order to achieve that “ideal body,” I focused on two things: limiting how much I ate and working out relentlessly. Being an athlete, I saw certain foods as deterrents. I wouldn’t walk down certain aisles in the grocery store and thought of foods in terms of negatives, like how much calories or sodium specific foods had. 

By not eating much, I thought I would get rid of my fat and by working out a ton, I would get big and strong. When I didn’t see the desired results, I worked out more and ate less. This spiraled into bulimia. 

NEDA: Did you experience any specific frustrations as a male struggling with an eating disorder?

Marjama: At the time I was struggling through my darkest days, most of the recovery methods for eating disorders were geared towards women. In outpatient treatment, I was the only guy in there and had no relatable person to talk to. As a male, my biggest frustration was how to build muscle. I cared more about how I looked than the read-out from a scale. 

NEDA: What do you wish more people knew about men and food and body issues?

Marjama: In my opinion, numbers aren’t factual. There are far more men who suffer from poor body image issues than the numbers indicate. 

There is a strong link between body image among men and steroid and supplement abuse that seems to be ignored from a reporting standpoint. How many males use steroids outside of athletics to look better? At some point, many guys turn to steroids and other substances as a means to bulk up, but we still seem to focus only on steroid abuse among athletes, who are a very small percentage of the population. While many women use diets and other means to look thinner, many men use these substances to gain muscle. 

NEDA: At what point did you realize that you had a serious problem?

Marjama: I first realized that I might have a big problem when I started resorting to extreme methods of calorie restriction (bulimia primarily). But my struggles with eating disorders only got worse. I was a perfectionist and didn’t want to admit that I needed help. I remember sitting at the dinner table at Thanksgiving in my sophomore year. I didn’t put much on my dinner plate and my mom knew something was wrong. She was the one who enrolled me in counseling and finally, the inpatient program. For me, going through the inpatient/outpatient experience was an eye-opening experience on how serious my struggles had progressed.

NEDA: How do you maintain recovery with a busy and active career and lifestyle?

Marjama: The most important part of recovery is having a strong support system. That alone is not enough, though. I’ve prioritized adding positive affirmations into my routine and putting a greater focus on time management. I also prepare for each day and stay diligent with improving my coping skills, which have been crucial as well.

I try to see food in a more positive light now. In order for me to perform, I need to fuel my body. If my body doesn’t have nutrients, I can’t perform at my best. A complete and balanced diet has helped me look and feel better as well. 

NEDA: What role did baseball and athletics play in your journey, both positive and negative?

Marjama: Sports have played both negative and positive roles in journey. While no one is to blame, wrestling opened the door to extreme calorie cutting techniques I wouldn’t have otherwise known of. 

Conversely, not being able to play baseball my junior year of high school due to my eating disorders helped me understand the passion I had for the baseball. Baseball gave me a goal and ultimately played a major role in my recovery. It’s something I love, so I need to fuel my body in order to perform. I also learned that sports psychology provided me some excellent skills to cope with the disorders through means I can relate to. 

NEDA: What are you doing now to fight stigma surrounding eating disorders in men?

Marjama: This Q&A would be one. I’ve also partnered with Uninterrupted to create a documentary that tells my story in a compelling manner. I’m using my platform, however small it may be, as a megaphone to speak out. My goal to fight the stigmas around eating disorders is to tell my story loudly to anyone that will listen. If I can help bring this discussion to the forefront, perhaps more people struggling will find the support and resources I was blessed to find. I want other people, especially young people, to know that it’s okay to seek out these resources. 

NEDA: What would you like men who are struggling right now to know?

Marjama: First and foremost, men must know there is hope for them. 2) Utilize the resources available to you.  3) This issue is not exclusive to women and it’s not emasculating to get help. Most people, at some point, will struggle with body image issues and feeling like they’re not good enough. It’s okay to have these thoughts, but there are healthy and positive ways to cope with them. 

Men of all shapes and sizes and from all corners of the world suffer from and improperly cope with eating disorders. We can and must do better. 

Read more on NationalEatingDisorders.org

March 8 is International Women’s Day — dedicated to celebrating the achievements of women in all arenas: social, economic, cultural, political and personal as well.

To mark the day, NPR compiled some of the profiles they’ve done of truly remarkable women, from a 101-year-old runner from India to a Yemeni refugee who didn’t let war stop her from being a scientist.

Argentina – Alika Kinan, the sex trafficking activist who sued her captors

When Kinan was a teenager in her native Argentina, a woman offered to buy her a plane ticket. Kinan thought was going to go on a great adventure. Instead, she was trafficked — stripped of her travel documents and taken to a brothel, where she was expected to have sex with 15 to 30 men a day. It was nearly 20 years before she was rescued. She went on to become the first Argentine woman to sue her traffickers and the state, winning a settlement of about $50,000. Her years of activism against trafficking were noted by the U.S. State Department in June: Kinan was one of eight activists honored at the unveiling of the 2017 Trafficking in Persons Report.

Botswana – Malebogo Malefhe, a domestic abuse survivor who is fighting gender-based violence

When people find out that Malefhe uses a wheelchair because she was shot by her boyfriend, the first question they ask is: “What did you do to him [to deserve it]?” Now Malefhe, who sustained eight bullets from her boyfriend of 10 years, wants to make sure that no woman who has faced domestic abuse is asked this question ever again. Since then, she has devoted herself to fighting gender-based violence in her native Botswana and teaching women that when men hurt them, it’s not their fault. The U.S. State Department honored her with a 2017 International Women of Courage award.

India – Man Kaur, a 101-year-old runner from India who’s showing the world it’s never too late to start a new hobby

A competitive runner, Kaur is a record holder in her age group for several categories and is now training for the Asia Pacific Masters Games in Malaysia in September. The centenarian is a role model for women and runners everywhere. The diminutive Kaur hasn’t been a lifetime runner. She started running in 2009, when, on a whim, her son took her to the track. She enjoyed it — and she hasn’t stopped since.

Kenya – Edna Kiplagat, a daughter of peasant farmers who won the Boston Marathon

Kiplagat was the fourth of 6 children. Her parents were peasant farmers. Last year, she took home $150,000 in prize money for winning the Boston Marathon. She’s done this while raising not just her two biological kids but also the two children of her sister, Alice, who died of breast cancer in 2003. She also has adopted another child whose parents passed away.

“It’s not hard,” she says of balancing being a mother of five and a world-class athlete. “It’s about organizing yourself and making sure that everything is done at the right time.”

Nigeria – Zainabu Hamayaji, a Boko Haram survivor who pretended to be crazy to save her children

Ingenuity, inspiration, an elaborate ruse and a touch of madness. That is what it took for Hamayaji to protect her family from Boko Haram. The terror network in northeastern Nigeria has killed 20,000 people, abducted thousands and driven more than 2 million people from their homes during its eight-year insurgency. The 47-year-old mother of 10 — four biological and six orphaned children ranging from age 5 to 15 — feigned insanity to keep the insurgents away. “I was told Boko Haram was approaching and looking for young girls,” she says. “Someone had tipped them off that I had a daughter of marriageable age, but I swore to myself that I would never allow them to wed or abduct my daughter.” And they didn’t want to mess with a “madwoman,” says Hamayaji, whose husband had been killed earlier by the insurgents. She and her children now live in a camp for displaced persons in her hometown.

Yemen – Eqbal Dauqan, a refugee who didn’t let war deter her from being a scientist

In March 2015, Dauqan’s hometown of Taiz was pulled into Yemen’s bloody civil war. Planes dropped bombs — and not just on military targets. “They were bombing my university!” says Dauqan, a biochemistry professor. “They killed some of my students.” After the bombings began, she had to stop her research. The university shut down. And it wasn’t safe for her to leave home. After months in hiding, Dauqan had an idea: Maybe her science could get her out of the war. She applied for a scholarship for refugees — and won it. Today, she works as a scientist, researcher and professor at Universiti Kebangsaan in Malaysia.

Zimbabwe – Chenai Mathabire, winner of a prize for her research on a faster tuberculosis test

There was a time when Mathabire read Vogue, watched beauty pageants on TV and fantasized about being a supermodel. Today she helps the sick and injured as a nurse and epidemiologist. This year, she received an International AIDS Society prize for showing that a faster tuberculosis test could be implemented at health centers in southeast Africa. Her goal is save the lives of HIV-positive patients who contract TB. “Nursing is often looked down upon and people just think you are there to be the maid of the doctor or do the dirty work. But teachers made me realize that nurses have a big role to play,” she says.

Read more and submit your story to NPR about a woman who’s making life better for other women on NPR.org.