Archive for category: Women and Female Empowerment

information and Stories about woman and female empowerment.

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Ending Violence Against Women with Cartoons

Star Wars
Human rights group Breakthrough launched a surprising new campaign tackling violence against women.   Advertisements featuring an animated scenario have been playing on TV sets across the U.S.  The short scene depicts men stopping other men from acting inappropriately towards women.   In one bit, a man stops another man from slapping a female vendor’s bottom as she walks by them.  The tag “#BeThatGuy.  Stop violence against women in its tracks” flashes across the screen. The ads were first tested at Miami Speedway last month, where they were extremely well received.

The videos are based off the idea that men are a part of the problem, but also a part of the solution.  The core idea is that men can use their male privilege to speak up for women where women may be unable to have a voice.

Breakthrough plans on running more ads both online and on TV that discourage gender-based violence.  Breakthrough organizer Ishita Srivastava says she believes in “meeting people where they are,” including at sporting events with high institutionalized gender bias.

The campaign is called “Ring the Bell,” and calls on men to hold each other accountable.  Breakthrough calls violence and discrimination against women and girls “unacceptable.”  The organization has centers in India and the U.S.  that specialize in using media, pop culture, art and community mobilization to encourage people to “live up to their full potential.”

Breakthrough has also launched campaigns against early marriage and sex-selective termination, and in favor of immigration rights, racial justice and HIV/AIDS prevention.

– Stephanie Lamm

Sources: Breakthrough, WITNESS Blog, Aljazeera

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Africa’s Philanthropic Billionaires

When it comes to international aid programs, everyone has heard of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as Warren Buffett’s astronomical donation track record, with last year’s donations reaching $1.87 billion. However, outside of the American audience, African billionaires are also stepping up and contributing to causes they care about. Here is a list of African philanthropic billionaires that lead programs in their own countries.

The wealthiest African, Aliko Dangote, worth an estimated $20.2 billion, donates millions of his wealth to education, health and social causes. Last year Dangote took part in the first ever Forbes 400 Summit on Philanthropy, where he discussed the benefits of donating, listing Gates and Buffett as inspirations.

Nathan Kirsh, a South African native, earned his $3.6 billion wealth by monopolizing the small goods market in New York City. According to Forbes, his philanthropic efforts focus on Swaziland, where he supplied approximately 10,000 people with starter capital for small businesses. Kirsh states that 70 percent of his recipients are women with a 70 percent success rate for his program overall. He also hopes to make Swazi schools the first in Africa to boast guaranteed computer literacy for all graduates.

Folorunsho Alakija hails from Lagos, Nigeria and is Africa’s richest woman thanks to her very profitable ownership of an oil block in the 1990’s. Since then, Alakija has expanded her $7.3 billion enterprise to real estate around the world, notably $200 million worth in the United Kingdom alone. With her money, Alakija founded the Rose of Sharon Foundation in 2008 which aids orphans and widows in her native country of Nigeria.

Mohamed Mansour has an estimated $2.3 billion fortune from his investment company the Mansour Group, which owns Egypt’s largest grocery store Metro and Egypt’s McDonald’s franchises, among other businesses. Mansour founded the Lead Foundation, a nonprofit that has provided over 1.3 million loans to small business endeavors and under-privileged women in Egypt. Mansour also chairs the Mansour Foundation for Development, which strives to eliminate illiteracy, poverty, and disease in order to expedite the development of Egyptian society.

– Emily Bajet

Sources: Daily Mail, Forbes, Rose of Sharon Foundation, Mansour Foundation For Development

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Leading Women in Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi

1. Sheikha Fatima Bint Mubarak

Also given the honorable title of “Mother of the Nation,” Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak is known as a “champion of women’s rights,” who has played a pioneering and leading role for women both locally and internationally.  She is the third wife of the late founder and first president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan.

Sheikha Fatima started her work in the 1970s by launching a nation-wide campaign against illiteracy, with a particular emphasis on the need to educate girls, and establishing the first women’s society in the country, the Abu Dhabi Women Development Association.  Since then, she has worked tirelessly by establishing over thirty associations, chairing tens of organizations, launching scores of initiatives and campaigns, and hosting and patronizing countless conferences and forums.  She is currently the Supreme Chairperson of the Family Development Foundation, Chairperson of the UAE Women’s General Union, and Chairwoman of the Supreme Council for Motherhood & Childhood.

In recognition of her work on women’s issues, she was granted the Marie Curie Medal by UNESCO.  She has also been awarded for her humanitarian and refugee work, for which she has been presented with a shield written in gold from the UN High Commission for Refugees, as well presented with the Global Humanitarian Personality Award, from the World Heart Group, for her efforts to help the sick.

 

 2. Sheikha Fatema Bint Mohammed Bin Zayed

Following in her grandmother’s footsteps, Sheikha Fatema put her compassion into practice as a young university student.  She is the daughter of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi (and the granddaughter of Sheikha Fatima Bint Mubarak).

In June 2010, while studying in university, she found herself deeply moved by the poverty still afflicting Afghanistan.  She decided to take action and partnered with a local Afghan firm, Tanweer Investments, to create the Fatima bint Mohammed Initiative (FBMI).  The organization is dedicated to addressing the 42% poverty rate in the country “by providing resources, compassion and the opportunity for impoverished women to free themselves from economic hardship and take a leading role in Afghanistan’s future.”

FBMI is unique because it embraced skills Afghan women already possessed, carpet weaving and spinning, and provided them with further vocational training and the resources they needed to become key industry players.  Indigenous wool is used in order to enhance the value of the product and guarantee 100% Afghan origin.  In addition to employing 3,000 low income Afghans (70% of whom are women), FBMI also offers the families healthcare and education services.

Since its inception, over 10,000 carpets have been produced and sold worldwide, providing sustainable economic development for more than 18,000 individuals.  FBMI has received numerous awards in recognition of its achievements, including the DOMOTEX Middle East Special Recognition Award and Sustainable Interior Design Initiative of the Year in 2011.

 – Rifk Ebeid
Sources: FBMI, The National, Arab Youth Awards, Alowaisnet

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Adolescent Girls, Bearing the Brunt of the Burden


“I am 17 years old. In the relief camp, when I was sleeping in the night, I was raped. I did not know what had happened to me. I do not know the face of the man. I had heavy bleeding…now I see some disturbances in my body and when my mother took me to the hospital, I was told I am pregnant”.

This is what a young girl from Tamul Nadu in India experienced after a tsunami devastated her hometown. Like her, millions of other girls in developing countries are the hardest hit by disasters in comparison with other segments of the population. Not only do women receive non-preferential treatment during emergency rescues, but they are also at a greater risk of sexual exploitation, child marriage, and being deprived of an education.

According to a report released by Plan International, a child rights NGO, girls fare far worse during disasters than the rest of the population. Given their gender, age, and humanitarian status, girls and women experience a triple disadvantage during crises since pre-existing inequalities and vulnerabilities are exacerbated.

In this way, a 14-year-old girl in a slum will experience a flood or an earthquake differently from a 14-year-old boy in the same situation. Such is the case of a son and a daughter who were swept away by a tidal surge in a cyclone that hit Bangladesh in 1991. The father of these children is cited as saying that he could not hold on to both and had to release his daughter because “his son had to carry on the family line.”

In other cases, adolescent girls and women are driven to sell sex because they have no alternative to feed themselves and their children. “I don’t work. I don’t have parents to help. So, for around a dollar, you have sex just for that…it’s not good to do prostitution, but what can you do?” said Gheslaine, who lives in a camp in Croix-de-Bouquets in Haiti.

Disasters also lead to an increase in child marriages. Research in Somaliland, Bangladesh and Niger found that child marriage is often used as a community response to crises in which girls are sold for income and food. In Niger, girls are taken out of school, wed and impregnated at the age of 13. Many of them suffer from fistula (a rupture between the birth canal and bladder caused by prolonged obstructed labor) and die.

One of the least prioritized issues during disasters is facilitating education for girls. Although most families would rather continue education for boys rather than girls, girls who receive an education are more likely to be healthy, marry later in life, and survive into adulthood. In fact, it is one of the most important determinants of practically all desired outcomes related to the Millennium Development Goals, from poverty reduction, to reduced infant mortality rates, and to enhanced democratization.

Despite the evidence that confirms that the empowerment of women has a transformative power in all types of societies, this study reveals that the rights to protection, education, and participation are still not granted to most women and girls, especially during crises.

– Nayomi Chibani
Feature Writer

Sources: IRIN, Plan International
Photo: UNHCR

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UN Women and the Fight for Equality

UN Women is an organization that was created in July 2010 by the United Nations General Assembly. The organization’s full name is the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women; its mission is to promote gender equality throughout the world and champion women from all walks of life.

Many women in the world face discrimination in the workplace, and receive fewer opportunities when it comes to career and educational advancement. UN Women sees this kind of gender discrimination happening all over the world, and makes it a part of its agenda to ensure that women have basic and equal human rights. Women are often denied access to health care, and even worse, they lack the political voice to change such conditions because of their stark under-representation in governmental decision making.

One of the major issues on the UN Women’s agenda is the end to violence against women. In a 2013 global review, published by the World Health Organization, it was reported that 35 percent of women in the world have experienced some kind of violence from an intimate partner. UN Women also focuses on the different aspects that are associated with violence against women: sex trafficking, child brides, rape, and sexual harassment in the work or education place.

Partnering with government agencies is an effective way that UN Women is able to take action against the various forms of discrimination against women. UN Women channels its efforts on implementing laws that will help protect women against threats like violence. It also advocates for policies that will open up more economic opportunities for women.

The wage gap between men and women is something that UN Women takes very seriously and seeks to bring to a close by implementing policies that argue for fairness in the workplace. A large part of the organization’s mission to empower women comes from its dedication to spread awareness in response to the AIDS epidemic. Women make up 54 percent of all people living in the world with HIV. UN Women has made it a job to spread awareness on the factors connected to the spread of HIV/AIDS. With the help of its partners, and resources UN Women has been able to broadcast the voice of women living with AIDS and it takes steps to help prevent the spread of the disease.

UN Women is gaining momentum and acquiring more support. Actress, Nicole Kidman, showed her support for the organization during an acceptance speech at the Variety Magazine Power of Women Awards event. Kidman encouraged her audience to see the desperate need for women’s equality in the world.

– Chante Owens

Sources: UN Women, Daily Mail

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Yehu Microfinance

Founded in 1998 under the name Yehu Enterprises Support Services (YESS), Yehu has always had a strong focus on low income rural entrepreneurs and women of Kenya. The company’s dedication to providing the aforementioned population with specially targeted products and services allows their customers to improve their economic position.

The most significant trait that sets Yehu apart is their commitment to responsiveness. The company receives feedback from their clients using surveys, focus groups, complaint resolutions, and market research. From these endeavors, employees are able to draw conclusions regarding what their customers want. Yehu believes that “access to responsive and sustainable financial services helps accelerate their clients’ ability to move up the economic ladder and improve their lives.”

The aforementioned dedication to customer satisfaction is clearly portrayed in their products and services. One of the products Yehu offers is known as the Maji ni Uhai (which means “water is life). The Maji ni Uhai allows the customer to choose from water tanks, water connectors, and fresh water wells. It involves “durable water tanks (both underground and storage tanks), piping, water harvesting infrastructure, water pans, and plumbing works.” This product is meant to provide clients with an uninterrupted sustainable supply of clean water for domestic and commercial use.

Among its other services, Yehu offers the following: Business Loans, Elimu Loans (school fees), Mabati Loans (home improvements and clean water harvesting), Emergency Loans (covers finances in case of an emergency or death), Poultry Loans, Meat Goat Loans, Sikukuu Loans (religious unemployment, covers costs of housing and food), and Top Up Loans (an additional amount given to clients with existing business loans to mitigate unforeseen business challenges). In all of these situations, Yehu values flexibility and responsiveness to customer needs.

According to the World Health Organization, there are only two registered medical professionals for every 1,000 patients in Kenya. A recent economic survey showed that only 19 public health officials and 18 doctors are available per 100,000 Kenyans. Those who have health insurance have the option to receive better care at a private health facility and have a much better chance of survival. However, few Kenyans can afford insurance for their families, much less themselves.

Thankfully, Yehu noticed this devastating problem and stepped up to the plate with the introduction of a brand new loan–the Afya Imara (“strong health”) loan. Boasting no HIV/AIDS exclusion, this loan allows Yehu members to purchase a combined in-patient and out-patient family insurance policy for $140 per year. To ensure the loan’s accessibility to the rural population, the company has offered them as low as 2 percent below market rate.

Another unique facet of Yehu’s business is how their credit officers operate. Eighty percent of clients live in the remote coastal villages of Kenya. Credit officers travel on foot or on motorbike in order to meet with clients weekly or bi-weekly. This distance would often be deemed a huge problem in regards to loan disbursement, but Yehu quickly figured out a solution.

All disbursements and deposits are made through “a network of local banks and post office outlets.” This prevents distance from becoming an issue and strongly displays Yehu’s commitment to accessibility and responsiveness.

– Samantha Davis

Sources: KIVA, Yehu
Photo: Joseph Hill

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How Basket Weaving Has Helped Rwanda Recover

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Since its devastating 1994 genocide, Rwanda has been in a state of recovery. Nearly 20 years ago, Hutus killed approximately 800,000 Tutsis over the course of 100 days. In addition to numerous social, political and economic changes, the mass murders shifted the country’s gender ratio drastically, leaving women to outnumber men 70 to 30 percent. As a result, Rwandan women have taken center stage in the country’s recovery – by weaving baskets.

The practice of basket weaving has been a part of Rwandan culture for centuries. Women weaved baskets to help carry and contain food, to decorate ceremonies and to transport goods. Following the genocide, however, basket weaving took on a new meaning.

In the past two decades, basket weaving has become a way for Rwandan women to come together, pushing past the “Hutu-Tutsi” barrier that had once divided them. Working next to women whose husbands had been killed and women whose husbands had committed the killings, women all over Rwanda have chosen peace over hatred.

But healing isn’t the only positive effect of basket weaving. Rwandan women have also gained economic independence and improved their local communities by selling their baskets in Western markets.

For example, Gahaya Links started off as a small company with only 27 basket weavers. Today, it is a business with more than 4,500 artisans that is continuing to help impoverished areas of Rwanda. The company has done so well that their products are being sold by stores across the U.S., including big department stores like Macy’s.

While Gahaya Links is the foremost basket weaving company, a number of other basket weaving businesses have been started. The profits of these companies go toward providing Rwandan families with food and medicine.

It’s been 19 years since the genocide and the country is still recovering. But sometimes recovery can begin with something as small as a handcrafted basket.

– Chante Owens

Sources: Beauty of Rwanda, CBS, CNN
Photo: World Designs

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5 Great Female Writers on Giving Back

Anne_Frank_Giving_Back
This author’s previous post illuminated philanthropic quotes from five of the greatest male writers of our times. Here, we introduce to you five great female writers and what they have to say about giving back:

So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind,
Is all this sad world needs

—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Wilcox was an American poet whose style was simple, but the meanings therein were often profound. Some of her great works include Poems of Passion, A Woman of the World, and Poems of Peace.

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.

—Maya Angelou, As a writer, poet, and a significant member of the Civil Rights Activists during the 1960s, Angelou is perhaps most known for her autobiographies, including I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Other famous works include Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘Fore I Die, The Heart of a Woman, and Letter to My Daughter.

As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way.

―Mary Anne Radmacher. Radmacher is a writer and artist, and teaches writing seminars. She is best known for Lean Forward into Your Life, and Live Boldly.

No one has ever become poor by giving.

—Anne Frank. While hiding with her family from the Nazis during World War II with another family in Amsterdam, she kept a diary which was discovered after her death in a Nazi concentration camp. Her diary, The Diary of a Young Girl, is well known across the world as the heartbreaking memoir of a young girl’s transition into adolescence and an attempt at understanding an adulthood she’d never reach.

Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.

—J.K. Rowling, a writer with a rags-to-riches story, is not one who needs to be convinced of the importance of giving back. After making it to the list of richest people in the world in 2011, Rowling managed to donate so much money that she failed to make it to the list in 2012. Along with her multi-faceted fantasy Harry Potter novels, JKR is known for The Casual Vacancy, and The Cuckoo’s Calling, which was written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

– Aalekhya Malladi

Sources: GoodReads, Poetry Foundation, Telegraph
Photo: HTML Giant

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“Womenomics:” Japan Integrates Women to Boost GDP

On September 26, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe addressed the United Nations General Assembly, discussing his initiatives to create Japanese “womenomics,” an economic theory that posits the advancement and success of women in a society as directly correlated to the country’s larger growth rate.

The idea of utilizing Japan’s greatest resource—its women—is not entirely new. In 1999, Kathy Matsui, along with a variety of other employees at Goldman Sachs addressed a similar topic, suggesting that Japan could significantly increase its gross domestic product (GDP) by about 15 percent by better integrating its women.

In order to implement “womenomics,” the Japanese government will contribute over $3 billion by 2016 to increase female participation in society, aid in female healthcare costs, mitigate violence against women, and further empower women in a variety of other realms.

In a country with a rapidly shrinking population and a remarkably low birthrate, a successful implementation of “womenomics” is crucial. By introducing large numbers of women to the workforce, Japan will vastly benefit both economically and demographically. Clearly, women are the key to Japan’s future.

Of course, “womenomics” also exists as a crucial necessity in the rest of the world, particularly in developing regions like Africa. Fortunately, the Japanese government has recognized this and is now providing enormous support to Africa’s women.

Instead of working within the donor culture of international development, Japan is striving to help transform agriculture in Africa, a domain primarily characterized by female laborers. Japanese efforts have already proven successful, as many farmers’ incomes have doubled in regions of Kenya.

Tellingly, African and Japanese women—as well as their female counterparts everywhere—are the key to a thriving economy. Yet, without egalitarian access to governmental resources and support, they cannot be empowered economically. Thus, it is the responsibility of governments everywhere to support their female citizens, and thereby, support themselves.

– Anna Purcell

Sources: United Nations, Wall Street Journal
Sources: Japan Today

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Uganda to Provide Contraception for Girls

Uganda High School Contraception Women Reproductive Rights
In an effort to reduce the number of women who die from maternal complications, Uganda’s government is considering a plan to provide contraception to every Ugandan women between the ages of 14 and 18.

In Uganda, an estimated 16 women die every day from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. For every woman who dies, an additional 15 women develop complications, such as fistulas. These statistics make it unlikely that Uganda will achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of reducing maternal mortality by 75 percent by the 2015 deadline.

During a meeting organized by the Ugandan health ministry earlier this month, Sarah Opendi, the state minister for primary health care, said it was “unethical” to allow Uganda’s female citizens to continue to die from easily preventable complications

Among the most fatal of these complications are hemorrhaging, high blood pressure, and contraction of infectious diseases due to weakened immune systems. However, many young women also die from self-induced abortions.

“You don’t know what some of these girls go through,” Opendi said. “When they can’t confide in anyone and are desperate to get the fetus out they will do anything.”

Afraid to confide in their parents and usually impregnated by classmates who are also unable to support a child,  many girls try to terminate their own pregnancies, and often die in the process.

To address this problem, the Ugandan government plans to set up youth centers in schools and hospitals, where young girls can receive proper counseling. The government is likely to also provide condoms and contraceptive pills.

John Cooper, the executive director of Uganda Family Planning Consortium, believes that every woman should have a child by choice, not chance. Currently, of the Ugandan women who get pregnant, half of the pregnancies are unwanted.

“Now, we can’t want to reduce the numbers of women who dies while giving birth and not want to provide women with contraception that can reduce their fertility,” said Cooper.

The Ugandan minister must first convince several critics before the government’s plan to provide contraception to every woman between 14 and 18 is implemented. But this may be the country’s only option. Uganda’s population currently stands at over 34 million, and the country’s fertility rate is 6.7 percent. Moreover, women in rural areas lacking medical resources may produce twice as many children.

If the movement to provide contraception passes, the government must turn to its next issue in the fight to lower maternal mortality and limit population: the need to allocate more funding and resources to Uganda’s impoverished rural regions.

– Scarlet Shelton

Sources: New Vision, Index Mundi, all Africa
Photo: Books For Africa