Sexual violence is an overwhelming problem for women and girls living in the Democratic Republic of Congo -– but a new center aims to eliminate sexual violence and build an army of women who can make their voices heard.
The program, called City of Joy, supports nearly 180 Congolese women -– mostly who are rape victims. Started by Eve Ensler, a feminist and playwright of “The Vagina Monologues,” City of Joy is helping to heal these women, empower them and put them on track to becoming leaders in their communities. Women can take courses in self-defense, computer skills and human rights; learn trades and farming; and take therapy sessions for their past traumas at the center.
Having support groups like City of Joy is particularly important in a region where the use of sexual violence is used as a political tool and a weapon of war. According to the UN, an estimated 160 women are raped each week in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu in the DR Congo.
Just recently, the African Union hosted a summit to discuss ways to keep the continent’s women safe and equally represented. Margot Wallström, who works on sexual violence in conflict for the UN secretary general, urged African leaders to take responsibility for the widespread sexual violence in Africa and work to eliminate it. “We have to give them a role and a voice, and a place at the decision-making table. There should be no peace negotiations without women present at the table because there can be no peace unless we have peace also for women,” she said.
When you give women an education, you give them a voice. And when you give a community of women a voice, it creates a movement. We’re hopeful for the change the women of Africa will bring to their continent, and we’re glad that the African Union and support groups like City of Joy are helping to lead the way. To learn more about stats, stories and recommendations for African women, read our report, Africa’s Future is Female.
Eve Ensler and Noella at City of Joy. Photo courtesy of V-Day.
With less than two weeks until world leaders converge in New York City for the U.N. Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), we are anxious to see how countries are planning to achieve them.
She noted that MDG 3, which promotes gender equality and women empowerment, is the lynch pin to achieving the other MDGs. Not only is gender equality an issue of fairness, it is also smart business — increased participation of women in politics decreases corruption.
Ambassador Verveer noted that only a fifth of positions in national governments are held by women, and said, “Democracy without the participation of women is a contradiction in terms.”
The gender gap in some areas of the world is staggering, and Ambassador Verveer believes that investing in women is the world’s greatest untapped resource.
She noted that women do 60 percent of the world’s work, but earn only 5 percent of the income. The Obama administration’s Global Health and Feed the Future initiatives will attempt to integrate essential programs to empower women and more effectively help them succeed worldwide.
While it was clear that Ambassador Verveer understood the importance of women and girls and that the administration agrees they are a key feature of the MDG plan, it’s unclear how they plan to put that belief into action in U.S. development policy and provide a sustainable path forward.
ONE is looking forward to hearing more details on how the MDG strategy will be implemented and how it will fit into ongoing efforts to reform U.S. development policy –- including the administration’s Presidential Study Directive and Congress’s rewrite of the Foreign Assistance Act.
ONE Communications Coordinator El Medhin recently had the chance to talk agriculture with Evelyn Nassuna, Ugandan county director for Lutheran World Relief.
In the video, Nassuna discusses her work with small, local farmers in Uganda. This has changed not only their lives, but the lives of families and communities as a whole. But she also talks about the challenges. “Nobody wants to invest in farmers,” she notes. “They are a very high-risk group.”
El notes, “Nassuna’s voice may be quiet, but her experience and stories speak volumes about how African poverty can end, and how we all can affect change!” Check out El’s interview and share your thoughts in the comment box below.
A great story from our partners at Self-Help Africa about a market gardening project in Burkina Faso. For 25 years, Self-Help Africa has given farmers new seed, irrigation advice, small loans and access to markets to help them grow more food and lift their families and communities out of hunger and poverty.
Forty-one villagers in Dassui make up the ‘Wenden Kondo’ (God Will Provide) market gardening group. Through a local group the partners with Self-Help Africa, they learned how to grow the best crops and were given seeds, tools and funding for fencing and a water supply.
Today, they grow onions, cabbage, carrots, chili, garlic and rice and grain during the rainy season. They use some of the vegetables to feed their families, and some they sell in the nearby Bitte market.
Zungrana Awaya, a mother of six and the secretary of the group, is one of Wenden Kondo’s 20 women members. She says the gardening project has provided a valuable source of income for her family.
‘I was born in this village, but I left because there did not seem to be any way for me to make a living. But the garden is creating new opportunities.”
It’s a hard job, she says. But life is getting a little better. In fact, everything is getting a little better. The money that they get from their farming activities is helping Zungrana and the other villagers send their children to school and buy medicine when it is needed.
And their hard work is supporting nearly 400 people in their local community.
“My son, who is 17, says that he wants to leave because he has few prospects of work,’ Zungrana says.
But she tells him not to forget about the garden. “It is new, but we are hopeful that it will grow.”
This is our very first post from ONE’s government relations intern, Zach Kelly. Make sure to give him props in the comments section!
Last week, ONE had the exciting opportunity to partner with the U.S. Department of State to host a luncheon discussion with the African Women’s Entrepreneurship Program.
At the lunch, women from 35 African countries shared their experiences about working in the African business world. Our keynote speaker, Dr. Pearl Alice Marsh of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, provided a congressional perspective of women’s challenges and opportunities and the role they play in commerce and job creation on the continent.
She emphasized that both the public and private sector must make special efforts to remove obstacles that impede the success and growth of African businesswomen because they are proven and effective agents of development in their society.
During our discussion, we learned that African women have difficulties in gaining access to capital and other financial resources when starting and operating a business because of their gender. A participant from Ethiopia said she is working a solution to the problem: partner with other Ethiopian businesswomen to start the first-ever commercial bank owned by a majority of women. This would make it easier for women to access financial capital.
A participant from Nigeria shared her advocacy victory. By teaming up with local cassava farmers in securing assistance and support from the Nigerian government and the USAID, she saved a faltering cassava-processing factory in rural Nigeria. The factory is now fully functioning and ready to supply the beverage industry with glucose-syrup, creating jobs and real economic growth for the area.
These were only some of the amazing stories shared at the event, but each one highlighted the fact that these women are pioneers and leaders in their countries. They are passionate and committed to advancing the role and prosperity of future generations of women in African society, and with the help of global partners and investors, will certainly achieve these goals.
Flynn Coleman is one of this year’s winners for Concern Worldwide’s annual creative writing competition. The following is an excerpt based on her award-winning essay, which urges President Obama to support the Millennium Development Goals for the sake of gender equality.
What if just one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) — achieving significant progress toward gender equality by 2015 — met its target, and in the process ensured that other MDGs would be realized as well?
In the developing world, women are gatekeepers and influencers in their villages. They have deep knowledge of local eco-systems and are the primary water gatherers, cooks, domestic organizers and healing agents for their families. When a mother is given a malaria bed net or attends a course on sexual education, she shares the net with her babies and an understanding of HIV and AIDS transmission with her partner and her friends.
Armed with a voice in community discussions, political decisions and leadership roles, women will rise above their poverty and pain. Most importantly, they will bring their children, husbands, brothers, mothers and friends with them. Women will apply the skills they learn in business school back to their hometowns and local communities.
Women will teach their children about sustainable living, ensuring environmental protection for the next generation. They will send their children to school, making sure they are wearing shoes and carrying pencils.
What if I told you that I know who holds the key to a future free from the torture of hunger, the lack of schooling, the isolation of discrimination, the grief of infant death, the confusion of sparse pre-natal care, the agony of disease, the devastation of environmental degradation and the pain of systemic injustice in the developing world?
What if I told you, that it was your daughter?
- Flynn Coleman, legal advocate for human, animal and environmental rights
Today, as you might know, is International Women’s Day, and I wanted to share this fascinating pair of articles in the New York Times that examines the roles of women both in peace-keeping efforts and leadership in Liberia. This key excerpt is taken from the latter:
Women hold six of the top positions in her cabinet of 22 — the Foreign, Commerce, Justice, Agriculture, Sports and Gender ministries. [Liberian president Ellen Johnson] Sirleaf is assertive about why they rose in the government of the first woman democratically elected to lead an African state.
“Women have stronger commitment. They work harder. They’re honest, and the experience justifies it,” Mrs. Sirleaf, 71, said in an interview in the Foreign Ministry building where she maintains her office. “In every time and every place I’ve worked, wherever there has been a scandal, wherever there has been indication of impropriety, it’s always been men.”
As Mrs. Sirleaf prepares to run for re-election next year, she is not free from controversy. While the United Nations peacekeeping force in Liberia is winding down, she faces pressure from the nation’s truth and reconciliation commission, which urged that she and dozens of others be banned for 30 years from holding public office for their roles in the war. She has conceded that she gave $10,000 while abroad in the late 1980s to a rebel group led by Charles Taylor, then a warlord, but for humanitarian services.
In Liberia, she contends, men are more tempted by corruption. “In an African context, men have too much of an extended family. They have too many obligations outside their families and homes, so the demands on them are harder and more intense.”
At the outset of her election campaign in 2005, Mrs. Sirleaf took on corruption as “Public Enemy Number One.” She has since had to confront cold reality in a nation of 3.5 million people who struggle with an 85 percent unemployment rate, where 60 percent of the population is under 25 years old.
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2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
