TEA

We have 20 days left until exams are OVER and we can update you all again with what we've been doing - which we're really excited about! 

But to set the scene of what we've been working on since New York, and what we're doing with NAWO & Peabody tomorrow in London, here's a little - important - entertaining video to watch with a cup of tea. 

AWOL

You may have noticed that in the last few weeks we haven't been updating the blog as frequently as we like to! 

Unfortunately the reality of exams have hit and with less than a month to go we are getting our heads down and revising every other second we have.

However, the seconds which aren't being spent revising have been spent organising, tweeting, emailing, setting up, collaborating and creating a lot a lot of exciting plans which we are looking forward to sharing with you very soon!

Since we've been back we've been doing lots of assemblies, meetings, talks and feedback sessions about what we got up to and the learning and issues we want to share and take forward. 

In the mean time before we're able to share the events and programs in the pipeline, as well as get back to uploading our thoughts and blog rants (of which we have scribbled down as drafts excessive amounts) we thought we'd upload a few pictures of our time in New York!

YWCA Young Women and Girls' Forum
Selfie with Lopa Banerjee
(Head of Civil Society section of UN Women)

IWD2015 March to Times Square

Hillary Clinton at the UN Women Event, CSW59

The only whole-group picture! with Annette, Co-Chair of NAWO

Speech #2: Equality: A Universal Right, Annie Thomas

Annie Thomas

'My Vision for the Future of Equality in Volatile Areas'

BASIRA's event in the Baha'i International Center, CSW59 New York

No harmful religious, cultural or social practice can be allowed to supercede human rights. I have drawn on my experiences as a young girl from the UK and some areas within BASIRA's Middle East and North Africa region to propose what I believe must be the path forward, towards true gender equality.

The experience of CSW was utterly incredible, this is how I summed it up to Humans of CSW59:

Naserian - empowering Maasai widows and their communities

Gemma Welsh

The problem:
           In many places around the world, widows are one of the most vulnerable segments of society.
           In traditional Maasai culture, widows have very few rights. They become part of their late husband’s family and their property rights transfer to his family too. Originally this was for the protection of the women and their children. To some extent this is still the case.
           The lived experience of the women themselves however, attests to the pain of their loss both of their husband and their status as first wives. In polygamous cultures, the inherited wives become the lowest on the status ladder and lose their home and their belongings and often the choices for their children. Taboos against widows are often so strong that they are a hidden group.
            Naserian has found that once the widows start meeting and it seems acceptable to be a widow, more emerge and are ready to share their own experience.  Naserian empowers Maasai widows to uphold their rights and live fulfilling lives. 

See this link for the full original statement from Naserian

The solution: 
           Naserian is a grass-roots charity with a connection straight from fundraising done here, directly to funding its work in Tanzania.
           Projects are then set up by Alias, a Maasai tribesman who has begun to change things for widows in his tribe.
           By extension, the widows are enabled to support themselves and their families, lifting them out of poverty, and the message of equality is disseminated throughout their communities.

           His work, started in his own village, has been enabled to spread through the help of funding to the seven surrounding villages. It has even inspired a national conference due to the prestige which international recognition has afforded him and Naserian, which will spread the message of their work even further. 

What Naserian does:

• educates widows about their rights
• empowers them to earn a living through teaching them skills which provides the means to  support themselves and their families
• supports them to rebuild their lives following this trauma
• trains widows and members of villages to carry on this work and educate their communities

Click here to see specific examples of present goals and those which have already been achieved

 Two projects which we would like to specifically fund:

1. Alias, the coordinator, is injured and has difficulty making the long journey to nearest villages (5 hours away), to which there are no roads. We have sourced him a motorbike as a mode of transport to continue this work, which will cost £400
2. A three day training course in human rights for 5 widows in each of the seven villages has been planned. This would enable widows to train their entire communities, and thereby disseminate this essential work for a cost of just £540

The Plan:
          With our school FemSoc, we are currently planning a large fundraising event which we hope will enable us to fund these important causes, and more.
          We will keep this blog updated as we are able to, however in the mean time (as the sooner we can enable these efforts the better!) we would like to take the opportunity to share the opportunity to donate anything you may be willing to this cause!
          Just £10 would fund two days of training for a widow (and by extension, if you like, 1/5 of a village), or make headway to meaning that Alias can carry on his work.
          If you feel you are able to, please follow this link to donate £10, or visit this page to donate any other amount, or support the charity in any other way!



Gender Inequality in the Olympic Games

Olympic Games

Annie Thomas

The Olympic Games held in London in 2012 was heart-warming to many. People were engaged in events they had never heard of before, and patriotism was at its peak. The motto to ‘inspire a generation’ encapsulated the happiness and aspiration for success of future sport in Britain and, ideally, internationally.

To a large extent it gave women’s sport a platform. Athletes such as Jessica Ennis-Hill, Rebecca Adlington and Jade Jones became household names, figureheads for the games, and inspirations to many women. Nicola Adams became the first female Olympic champion in boxing history; a landmark achievement in the fight for equality, despite the while it took for them to deem women capable of taking part in such a discipline. 

Victoria Pendleton became the most successful female Olympic athlete, with 2 gold medals and a silver medal, leading the way for women in an effort to inspire a new generation of female sporting champions.

However, the Olympics still failed to perform in regards to providing a truly fair and equal summer games. 

It fell at the first hurdle, when it was found that only 5% of the contracting workforce for the Olympic Park, and an even more shocking 3% of those employed for the Athlete’s Village, were women. This amounts to an already determined attitude towards the effectiveness of women before the games had even begun.

Another startling finding was when Saudi Women raised the issue that their country would only be bringing an all-male team to the Olympics. Further investigation led me to discover that in Saudi Arabia girls are banned from participating in sport in state schools, and strict rules and regulations have to be followed in order for them to exercise in a gym.

Sheikh Abdullah al-Maneea, who represents the official Supreme Council of Religious Scholars in Saudi Arabia, produced a declaration that the excessive “movement and jumping” involved in sports such as basketball and football could cause girls to lose their virginity, as they could tear their hymen.

Neither are females allowed to attend sporting events held in stadiums as spectators, and they are publicly slammed if they become professional participants for going “against their natural role”. Although this was not a direct action of the Olympic Committee in Britain, there was a lack of action. Could an agenda have been put in place?

First-hand viewing and additional research has, in fact, enabled me to discover the true injustices of some of the sporting events held in an Olympic games. 

Cycling, for instance; the road race held in and around the city of London was an event that many geared-up spectators came out to see, yet the lengths of the courses were vastly different for male and female cyclists - giving a very different experience for the separate races. With the men’s race being set over 250km, the women’s race over 140.3km looked pitiful in comparison.

Former Olympic champion Nicola Cooke summated this excellently, stating, “There is no doubt that there are important physical differences between men and women… That, of course, is why we separate men and women for the purposes of competition. But the short answer is: there’s no good reason that women don’t have the events that men do.”

This along with diving, which allows men to take six dives, but limits women to five, is one that I personally cannot physically comprehend, to even begin to understand. I suppose they must believe female athletes, after taking their fifth dive, suddenly lose the ability to function, let alone take another dive!

And tennis is another one, with women only able to play in three sets despite men playing five. 

I could go on; gymnastics, swimming, athletics, are all examples of sports that contain unequal rules and events, and it’s upsetting to think that budgeting and “organisational difficulties” are excuses being used to stop women from having the same opportunities and experiences as men.
Whatever the incomprehensible reasoning behind it, I don’t believe they’ll change it in a hurry when there are traditions to maintain.