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"Women Won't Wait" is an international coalition of organizations and networks working to promote women's health and human rights in the struggle to address HIV and AIDS and end all forms of violence against women and girls.
"Women Won't Wait" seeks to speed up effective responses to the linkages of violence against all women and girls and the spread of HIV. The campaign's vision is to ensure: That women's and girls' human rights are respected, protected and fulfilled; That women's and girls' vulnerability to HIV&AIDS are reduced; That there is an emphasis on building gender equality and women's empowerment in responses to HIV&AIDS and violence against women and girls; That violence against women infected and affected by HIV&AIDS are addressed; and That there is greater public attention and political will to address gender-based violence.
The campaign strives to achieve this vision through the following objectives: To formulate and improve policies, programmes, advocacy and services that better integrate HIV&AIDS and VAW/G; To increase the level of resources (funding and human) committed by governments, donors, multilateral institutions and civil society (including NGOs) to addressing violence against women and girls, in and of itself, and as part of the response to HIV&AIDS; To improve the legal framework (laws and policies) to better address, prevent and combat/contest/challenge violence against women and girls and allocate appropriate resources and services to support women's and girls' empowerment. To build mutual accountability among women's rights, sexual and reproductive health/rights, human rights and HIV groups to each other.
The "Women Won't Wait" press conference was the official launch of the campaign with  Mary Robinson as the prominent speaker at the launch. Members of the eight-person panel introduced the "Women Won't Wait" campaign and its mission. The panelists' presentations highlighted the campaign's report, "Show Us the Money: Is Violence Against Women on the HIV&AIDS Donor Agenda?" and issues surrounding violence against women and HIV/AIDS and what international aid agencies are and are not doing to address these issues. Funding for this event was provided through a grant form the UN Foundation.
Text and photograph courtesy Women WON’T Wait website. WWW is apartner and Cooperating Organization with dgCommunity Gender and Development.
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The mission of ACCION International is to give people the tools they need to work their way out of poverty. By providing microloans, business training and other financial services to poor men and women who start their own businesses, ACCION's partner lending organizations help people work their own way up the economic ladder, with dignity and pride. With just a little capital, people can grow their own businesses. They can earn enough to afford basics like running water, better food and schooling for their children.
In a world where three billion people live on less than $2 a day, it is not enough to help 1,000 or even 100,000 individuals. ACCION’s goal is to bring microfinance to tens of millions of people – enough to truly change the world. We know that there will never be enough donations to do this. That's why ACCION has created an anti-poverty strategy that is permanent and self-sustaining.
Why Microfinance? Most of the world's three billion poor people cannot find work. Where they live, few jobs are available and those that are often don't pay a living wage. To survive, they must create their own jobs by starting tiny businesses or "microenterprises." To support their families’ basic needs, these “microentrepreneurs” make tortillas, sew clothes, mend shoes or sell vegetables in the street – anything to put food on the table.
Microentrepreneurs work hard – sometimes 18 hours or more, every day of the week. Yet with little or no capital to grow their businesses, they remain trapped in a cycle of poverty. To open their businesses each day, they often borrow from loan sharks, who charge as much as ten percent daily, or they pay higher prices to buy goods on credit. The result: their hard-earned profit ends up in the hands of others, leaving them locked in a daily struggle for survival.
What they need to break free is working capital – a loan as small as $100 at a fair rate of interest. Yet, in traditional banking, these microentrepreneurs are far from ideal clients: their loans are too small to justify the time and expense needed to administer them, and they lack the collateral and credit history required by traditional lenders. That's why ACCION began issuing microloans 40 years ago. A small loan can cut the cost of raw goods or buy a sewing machine. Sales grow, and so do profits. With a growing income, people can work their way out of poverty.
Microfinance works because it builds on the one asset found even in the poorest communities around the world: the power and determination of the human spirit. Historically, anti-poverty programs have been unable to help more than a tiny fraction of the world's poor. There simply is not enough charitable money in the world, and there never will be. That is why ACCION is leading the effort to create a permanent answer to poverty.
Text and photograph of Anna Leone Mushi , Accion Microentrepreuer from Tanzania, courtesy Accion International, a partner and Cooperating Organization with dgCommunities Gender and Development, Youth for Development and Microfinance.
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The Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) is an Afghan women’s non-governmental organization (NGO) which was founded in 1995 by Professor Sakena Yacoobi to help address the problem of poor access for women and children to education and health services, their subsequent inability to support their lives, and the impact of this lack of education and health on Afghan society. AIL is an organization, run by Afghan women, that plays a major part in reconstructing education and health systems capable of reaching the women and children of Afghanistan--whether in refugee camps or still in their homes.
AIL presently has offices in Kabul and Herat, Afghanistan and in Peshawar, Pakistan. AIL serves 350,000 women and children annually, is run by women and employs about 450 Afghans, over 70% of whom are women. AIL has been project partner with Creating Hope International (CHI)--a 501(c)3 non-profit in the U.S.--since 1996. Through a long-term technical assistance agreement, CHI provides advice, training, financial management, and fund-raising assistance and acts as fiscal sponsor for AIL upon request.
AIL believes that educated people are the key to a future, developed Afghanistan. With that in mind, the organization works to empower all Afghans who are needy and oppressed by expanding their educational and health opportunities and by fostering self-reliance and community participation. Its goals are to lay a foundation for quality education and health for years to come and to provide comprehensive education and health services to Afghan women and children, so that they can support and take care of themselves.
AIL requires community participation in all of its projects. Believing that the best results are achieved when everyone is integrally involved, AIL works with community leaders in the planning, developing and implementation of all projects. No project is started unless the community has requested it and is involved in it. Utilizing this visionary strategy, communities now contribute 30 to 50 percent of the resources needed for a project.
These community contributions have come in many forms, including donated space, materials, and supplies. These contributions have strengthened the communities’ involvement in and ownership of AIL programs. AIL will continue to strengthen community contributions to and ownership of programs as a part of ongoing efforts towards sustainability.
AIL is committed to bringing peace and dignity to Afghan people as they struggle to overcome oppression, devastation, and injustice wrought by the last quarter century of war and instability. AIL's internationally recognized work is improving the health and education of Afghan women and children, relieving their suffering after three decades of war and civil strife, and enhancing the quality of their lives.
Text and photograph for this highlight, courtesy Afghan Institute of Learning, a partner and Cooperating Organization with dgCommuniy Gender and Development and Creating Hope International.
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A New Report will reveal the latest trends in health coverage to save the lives of mothers, babies and children. Leading global health experts, policy-makers and Parliamentarians will gather in Cape Town, South Africa from 17-19 April 2008 for the Countdown to 2015 for Maternal, Newborn & Child Survival conference and report launch. The event takes place in advance of G8 Summit discussions on strengthening health systems for maternal, newborn and child health to be held in Japan in July 2008.
Parliamentarians from the 68 countries which account for 97% of global maternal and child mortality, as well as from donor nations, will participate in joint sessions to take stock of the latest research findings and debate strategies for increasing coverage levels. Over 10 million women, newborns and children under five die each year from causes which are largely preventable and treatable.
The prestigious medical journal The Lancet will publish a special Countdown to 2015 issue to be launched at a press conference in London on 10 April. The Countdown to 2015 conference will take place during the 118th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union which brings together over 1 000 delegates from around the world in Cape Town from 13-18 April. The over-lapping events will provide a valuable forum for debate and action aimed at stimulating investment in maternal, newborn and child health.
The objectives of the Countdown to 2015 are: 1] To summarize, synthesize and disseminate the best and most recent information on country-level progress in achieving high, sustained and equitable health coverage with interventions effective in reducing mortality among mothers, newborns and older children less than five years of age; 2] To promote media visibility for the Countdown to 2015 Report by projecting its key messages, selected country profiles and the human face behind the data and trend analysis; 3] To raise the awareness of key national and international decision-makers regarding the conclusions of the Countdown to 2015 Report in a manner which will stimulate discussion and motivate their commitment and investment; 4] To provide a forum for the development of coordinated institutional commitments to maternal, newborn and child survival efforts.
Text for this article courtesy conference website. Photograph, courtesy UNICEF, a partner and Cooperating Organization with dgCommunity Youth for Development. Additional resources, courtesy Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, a partner and Cooperating Organization with dgCommunity Gender and Development.
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More than half the women in the world live in countries that have made no progress in gender equity in recent years. This is the main conclusion of the Social Watch 2008 Gender Equity Index (GEI) which, for the first time, shows recent evolution and trends in bridging the gap between men and women in education, the economy and empowerment.
The GEI 2008, released to coincide with International Women's Day on March 8, 2008, illustrates that the greater equity levels to be found in education are not paralleled by acceptable levels in the economic field nor in the empowerment of women. Political empowerment is the area where most progress has been made in recent years as a result of active policies, yet economic equity shows disparate results, with as many countries regressing as those where there is progress. In education equity is comparatively closer, but the trend for many countries is to regress.
Difficulties in reaching equity cannot be justified by a lack of resources: the GEI mapping and that of each of its components show that – regardless of income levels – each country can reduce gender disparity through adequate policies.
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The six-year, six-country, South Asian Campaign to End All Violence against Women - or the ‘We Can’ campaign - aims to deal with violence women endure daily, both within their homes and in the larger society in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan. It recognizes violence against women is rooted in gender inequality and that whether in homes or outside, it reflects the power structures in society which relegate the status of women to be only after that of men. Its starting point is, thus, to deal with conditions that systematically deny women their lives, health, rights, choices, and power in the family.
Launched in 2004 and being taken forward by over 1,810 organizations in the six countries, ‘We Can’ has raised large scale public awareness on bias, inequality, and violence against women, particularly domestic violence, and is a trigger for a new consciousness, attitudinal change and enhancement of rights.
It is allowing millions of ordinary men and women find their own solutions to violence in their homes and lives, and find ways to reject it. In its second phase now, ‘We Can’ is building social cohesion and networks. This will support and sustain the created change, foster an organized mass movement, and aid in transforming existing power relations in society to end all violence against women.
Fifty percent women in South Asia experience violence in their daily lives. Sixty percent women in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, 37 percent in India, 80 percent in Pakistan, and 50 percent in Afghanistan live with daily abuse by their intimate partners within their own homes. In the region, violence against women is pervasive, critical, and deeply entrenched in the family, community, society and the State, and advancing in intensity and scale.
The result of such discrimination and violence is 50 million ‘missing’ women.- there are now only 94 women for every 100 men in South Asia. Violence against women goes beyond physical beatings; it is about conditions and situations that systematically deny and devalue women, their lives, health, rights, choices, and power. It affects every woman’s life in the region even if she herself is not a victim; its evident in every decision she makes – or does not – (within homes, social settings or workplace) be
it the mode of dress, behaviour or movement. It threatens her life, health, rights, choices, power, and the ability to participate in all spheres of life. Violence against women does not just affect women. It adversely affects each one in society. There would be 13 million fewer malnourished children in South Asia if women had an equal say in the family, says UNICEF’s The State of World’s Children (2007).
‘We Can’ is making violence against women visible and a public concern. It is undoing the shame and stigma attached to talking about it (particularly domestic violence), and triggering a desire and commitment among ordinary people to change social attitudes and behaviour that support and maintain inequality and violence against women. It works on the premise that when enough people embark upon a change they can influence and transform the institutions, communities, and society of which they are a part.
The Text for this article and photograph, courtesy We Can website.
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