Women fighting to be equal around the globe.

[the_future_modernes]

Imagining Urban Life without Catcalls or Rape
Kanya D'Almeida interviews INES ALBERDI, Executive Director of UNIFEM

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 22, 2010 (IPS) - The U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) launched an ambitious new initiative to improve the safety and wellbeing of women in five major cities Monday - New Delhi, India; Cairo, Egypt; Quito, Ecuador; Kigali, Rwanda; and Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea.

In an interview with IPS, Ines Alberdi, executive director of UNIFEM, discussed the aspirations and trajectory of the 'Safe Cities' initiative, from its humble beginnings as a set of pilot programmes in various cities across Latin America, from Bogotá, Colombia, to Rosario, Argentina and Santiago, Chile.

These programmes were implemented after proposals from grassroots organisations for a comprehensive campaign on safety in cities, a landscape that has become a virtual war zone for millions of women.

Inspired by the programme's successes in Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, Brazil, Chile and Colombia, UNIFEM and UN Habitat began to mull the idea of going global. With solid regional bases already in place, UNIFEM has decided to work closely with local governments and municipalities to alter the urban landscape, making it safer for women and girls to navigate. MORE

PERU And Now For Non-Sexist Education

LIMA, Oct 19, 2010 (IPS) - Women in Latin America have broken down barriers in education, and in several countries have more years of education than men. But the task now is to make sure that education reduces, rather than fuels, inequality between men and women.

Representatives of women's organisations and human rights groups from more than 20 countries, mostly in the Latin American region, met in Lima to discuss how to achieve non-discriminatory education that does not reproduce stereotypes inside and outside schools.

"To say that education is sexist and discriminatory is not an ideological statement, but a fact based on scientific evidence," Moriana Hernández of the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defence of Women's Rights (CLADEM) told an audience of 60 participants from 14 countries of the region and delegates from Africa and Asia. MORe

Q&A: Community Radio Stations – Key Players in Expanding Democracy
Marcela Valente interviews MARÍA PÍA MATTA, new president of AMARC

LA PLATA, Argentina, Nov 15, 2010 (IPS) - Chilean journalist María Pía Matta, a feminist and staunch believer that communication is a universal right based on freedom of expression, is the new president of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC).

Matta was elected at the end of the Nov. 8-13 Tenth World Assembly of Community Radio Broadcasters in the Argentine city of La Plata, 56 km southeast of Buenos Aires, whose theme was bolstering the effectiveness of community radio stations to help achieve greater social justice.

The more than 5,000 community radio stations that belong to AMARC on every continent should have increasing legal recognition, "because they are a key tool for expanding democracy at the local and global levels," she says in this interview with IPS.

Matta, a social activist and journalist who has been involved in alternative media from the start of her career, is head of La Morada, a Chilean NGO dedicated to improving the lives of low-income women.

La Morada founded in Chile Radio Tierra, the first feminist radio station in Latin America. MORE

KYRGYZSTAN
First Woman President Makes a Mark

BISHKEK, Oct 12, 2010 (IPS) - When Roza Isakovna Otunbayeva was selected to be President of Kyrgyzstan, she became the first woman head of state in the predominantly Muslim Central Asian region.

And she also took on a mission. Her mission is to pave the way for parliamentary democracy in a country that was formerly a part of the Soviet Union.

Her first task was to stabilise the situation arising out of the ethnic clashes in the southern city of Osh, which is her hometown. Her next job will be to conduct free and fair parliamentary elections, and then clear the way for her people to elect a new president.

"Electing a woman as the head of state shows our thinking is changing and that our nation is ready for real democracy," poet and journalist Olzhobay Shakir told IPS.

On Apr. 7 this year Roza Otunbayeva was selected to head a Russian- supported Kyrgyz interim government, following widespread rioting in capital Bishkek and the ousting of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. MORE

CUBA Lesbians Demand Fair Treatment from Health Providers

HAVANA, Nov 25, 2010 (IPS) - Lesbian and bisexual women's groups in Cuba, which welcome anyone who wishes to participate "with solidarity and in a respectful, friendly and healthy manner," point to the need to sensitise health personnel to the issue of female sexual diversity.

"We want to be treated as women, and we want to be able to openly tell the doctor who we are, explain to the doctor whether or not we have sex with intercourse, and tell the doctor about our fears," Argelia Felloue, the facilitator of the Oremi group, an initiative supported by the governmental National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX), told IPS.

The main target of their demand is gynaecology, because lesbians and heterosexual women have different needs.

"There are lesbians who have never had sex with penetration," said Nery Lázaro, the coordinator of the Oremi collective, who advocates a transformation in the doctor-patient relationship to ensure that lesbians come in for important procedures, such as Pap smears. MORE

Teaching Virtyual Resistance to violence

NEW YORK, Nov 24, 2010 (IPS) - What if young boys were imbued with a sense of empathy and fair play to counteract a culture that victimises women? Could they grow up to become part of a generation that renounces gender violence once and for all?

"Breakaway", an interactive video football game designed by students at the Emergent Media Centre of Champlain College in the U.S. state of Vermont, hopes to be one small part of a larger movement to accomplish just that.

The game was released in June 2010 just in time for the FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Since its inception, it has been hailed by critics, fans and players as a masterly attempt to create new discourses and open doors around the contentious issues of gender violence, racial stereotyping and fair team play.

Endorsed by Cameroonian football star Samuel Eto'o, Breakaway is the first narrative-driven interactive online game of its kind and is currently being distributed free around the world via the internet and youth organisations. MORe

ARGENTINA Click here to escape Gender Violence

CIUDAD EVITA, Argentina, Nov 23, 2010 (IPS) - "Men are drunks and batterers," Lorena Maurin tells IPS before heading in to her computer class, an oasis for women in the 22 de Enero neighbourhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

The course is offered in a community centre next to the Santa Clara de Asís chapel in a slum in Ciudad Evita, a working-class suburb on the west side of the capital.

"People from Ciudad Evita don't count. We're the lice on the bun in Evita's hair," quips Catholic nun Norma Santa Cruz, who heads the programme aimed at bringing technological tools to women who are victims of violence.

...
The nuns in the Santa Clara de Asís chapel and community centre have been working over the last 15 years on behalf of vulnerable local residents, mainly women and children who grow up in a violent environment, Santa Cruz explains to IPS.

Some 20 women who were already involved in the centre, where they brought their children for after-school tutoring or took part in recreational activities, were invited this year to participate in a computer course.

"We asked them to come for that purpose, because if we told them it was about violence, they wouldn't have shown up," says Santa Cruz. The goal is for the women to set up an email account, a blog or a Facebook page, in order to use the social networking sites and link up with other women, in a learning process that can help them rebuild -- or build -- their self-esteem. MORE

Comments

[buria_q]

wow, small world. had class with the interviewer. maybe you just know a lot of hampshire kids.

[buria_q]

im curious about the specifics of strategies to combat street violence against women in cities. delhi is supposed to be particularly horrible in this way.