Rwanda: Rwandan women's leadership spreads to villages

Mayor Marie Izabilza sat quietly in the back of the dirt floor concrete room in an impoverished province on the outskirts of Kigali. Her round face was furrowed in thought. Before her, a dozen young Rwandan war orphans fired off their concerns. Izabilza nodded as each one took a turn to voice a request to go to secondary school, find a job, buy food or visit a health clinic. A recently elected mayor for this province of several thousand, Izabilza and other women like her are part of a new band of female politicians working at local levels in Rwanda, which is struggling to rebuild a decade after a genocide left more than 800,000 dead in 100 days and this small Central African nation devastated.