Notes from Archie Law, CEO of ActionAid Australia
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Meet Polly. She’s a smallholder farmer from Uganda working to promote sustainable agriculture and the status of women farmers in her country.
Next week, ActionAid Australia will welcome Polly for a two-week speaking tour for rural communities across New South Wales and Victoria.
Polly is scheduled to arrive in Sydney on 18 June, and will travel to Orange, Bellingen and Armidale before finishing her trip in Melbourne (no public events) at the end of the month. Read the rest of this entry »
Cricket fans across India this week are feeling on top of the world after their nation’s jubilant win in the 2011 cricket world cup. The win has reignited patriotism across India and instilled hope for many young Indian men who are following India’s boyhood dream of one day playing cricket for their country.
But while this event may have instilled hope into every Indian boy dreaming of becoming a national hero, the results of the 2011 Indian Census released last week has made it blatantly obvious that the Indian girlhood dream is being ignored.
Malika is one of a group of volunteers in ActionAid’s project in Salem, Tamil Nadu southern India who try to prevent female infanticide, run by partner Welfare Centre for women and children.
Tags: India, women's rights
ActionAid marked the 100 anniversary of International Women’s Day on March 8 by speaking out about putting an end to violence against women all over the world.
In Australia, we invited women’s rights activist Nasima Rahmani to speak about her experiences of fighting against women’s rights abuse in her country Afghanistan. She was a compelling speaker, inspiring audiences of all ages and backgrounds, speaking at a number of events including a UNIFEM lunch, a presentation at the University of Technology Sydney and an Ascham School assembly. She was also interviewed on ABC Radio National’s Late Night Live, Law Report and Radio Australia, and madison magazine, and met with a number of foundations, law firms and female Federal Court judges.
Nasima co-ordinates the Women’s Rights program with ActionAid Afghanistan, training up women to be paralegals and community advocates to help combat violence against women and offer strong support to victims in legal and psychosocial ways.
Her message was powerful and clear: in developing countries such as Afghanistan, women’s rights have a long, long way to go. Women are often beaten and raped, and education and health services are very limited. Under Afghan law, women are supposed to be equal to their male counterparts but in a country steeped in tradition, Nasima said, negative customs greatly contribute to violence against women. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Afghanistan, Brazil, India, International Women's Day, Liberia, Nasima Rahmani, Uganda, women's rights
This is a guest post from ActionAid volunteer Mahdia Rahman, who visited Bangladesh recently and saw the work of ActionAid in the country.
As a volunteer for ActionAid Australia, I have always wanted to see the results of ActionAid’s work first hand, so when I returned recently to my birthplace, Bangladesh, I decided to take the opportunity to visit ActionAid’s work in the country and see for myself what difference their projects have made in people’s lives.
When I arrived in Bangladesh, I felt myself drowning in pessimism upon seeing millions of people suffering on a daily basis: poor girls and women working as domestic servants, degraded, deprived of an education; young boys, desperation on their faces, struggling to sell something to the cars passing by; men riding rickshaws in the heat… I couldn’t believe that millions of Bangladeshi people had been born into a life devoid of opportunities. And yet, on the other end of the class system, there were people living in comfort.
However, my tour with ActionAid Bangladesh proved that even when people have little else, there is hope that they can change their condition. Accompanied by ActionAid Bangladesh and staff from the Population Services and Training Centre members, we drove from Dhaka to a village in Gazipur, where I happened to have grown up in as a young child. Now, 14 years later I was driving past that area trying to take in the surroundings, behaving and being treated almost as a foreigner.
Tags: actionaid, Bangladesh, Child Space, Reflect circle
International Women’s Day will be celebrated across the world this Tuesday 8th March, with this year marking the 100th anniversary of the event. In addition to celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future, this year’s event will have the specific focus on; Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women.
Maua discusses her school report with her mother outside their home in a rural village in Tanzania. The 'Transforming Education for Girls Project' is run by Maarifa ni Ufunguo in Tanzania, supported by ActionAid and funded by Comic Relief and the Tubney Charitable Trust.
Tags: Education, Tanzania, women's rights
I’ve been a bit quiet on the blog lately as I’ve been immersed in the work of ActionAid Kenya these past 10 days which has been an amazing learning journey for me. At a personal level it was fantastic to be back in Africa as I hadn’t been in those parts since I left Johannesburg in 2006. Anyway I’m now laying over in Dubai Airport on my way back to Sydney as I scribble this post.
ActionAid Kenya is preparing for its next country strategy which comes into effect in 2011 and as a part of this process a team of ActionAiders was assembled to review their progress over the last five years, assess future opportunities and make recommendations on the direction of the programme. I was lucky enough to be selected as the Team Leader for this review and I had the absolute privilege of working with Seema Joshi, our Child Sponsorship Coordinator in the Asia Region, Judy Kamyani from the ActionAid Uganda Board, Olutayo Olujide, our Regional HR/OD Coordinator for West and Central Africa and Jo Walker from the ActionAid International Campaigns Team.
Then there is our team in Kenya that is superbly led by Jean Kamau who is 5 hours behind me on her first trip to Australia. Its when you work closely with such a talented and committed group of people you get a true sense of the drive behind this ambitious and bold organisation that I am so proud to be a part of.
So what did we find out about Kenya? Everyone, and I mean everyone, in Kenya is talking about the recently promulgated Constitution. This is a far reaching instrument that devolves the political authority in the country to county level and importantly from ActionAid’s perspective it contains a bill of rights which importantly grants women equal citizenship in the country for the first time. As a friend of mine in Kenya recently said, “Kenya you have a green light”!
Tags: Africa, Kenya, Milennium Development Goals, women's rights
It’s been a long time between posts which is largely due to me playing catch up as a result of 10 days in Hanoi attending a number of ActionAid Meetings focusing on Campaigning, then our Annual Country Directors Meeting followed by a quick Asia Regional Meeting.
That’s a lot of meeting and certainly a lot of talking so what’s with that? One of the big outcomes from Hanoi is a buy in from ActionAid’s senior management on how we can become an international campaigning power house. We are already a respected voice as a force for social change and we have some great policy work at country and international level but there is a renewed determination to take our campaigning work to the international level.
Tags: campaigning, conflict, Joanna Kerr, multinational, violence, women's rights
Last week ActionAid International’s Technical Advisor on Women’s Rights, Ms Ennie Chipembere, held a one day workshop in Sydney for all ActionAiders in Australia on Women’s Rights.
Much of Ennie’s focus was on Violence Against Women as this is a major priority for ActionAid internationally and our experience with protection and conflict work. In many ways this is the main game for us at ActionAid Australia and I thought I’d dig into the issue a little more and finish with how Australia can lead in this critical area.
Violence against women and girls is one of the starkest collective failures of the international community in the 21st century. Violence affects one in three women globally and is one of the most widespread abuses of human rights worldwide in times of both conflict and peace. It is a leading cause of death and disability among women of all ages. Women face violence and the threat of violence at every stage of their lives.
Tags: actionaid, millennium development goals, women's rights
Violence against women is an unacceptable crime that is still perpetuated world wide. This is especially the case for women such as Pumeza and Tshidi (pictured) in South Africa, who have been victims of hate crime due to their sexuality.
“It is not easy being a woman in this country” says Pumeza (left) Photographer: Jodie Bieber
Tags: actionaid, Hate crime, South Africa, women's rights
