Development Gateway Foundatio - 14-02-08

Development Gateway Foundation dgCommunities: Gender and Development http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender?intcmp=911 February 14, 2008 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. NEW HIGHLIGHT: Born in the Big Rains - A Memoir of Somalia and Survival 2. HIGHLIGHT RESOURCES 3. NEW! DISCUSSION: Educating women benefits the whole of society. It has a more significant impact on poverty and development than men's education. 4. NEW! RESOURCE OF INTEREST 5. MEMBER DIRECTORY: Update Your Profile for Networking & Collaboration --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Member, Welcome to your newsletter from the Gender and Development dgCommunity of the Development Gateway. Anuradha Bhattacharjee Content Coordinator --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. NEW! HIGHLIGHT: Born in the Big Rains - A Memoir of Somalia and Survival by Fadumo Korn, Sabine Eichhorst (Published by The Feminist Press at C.U.N.Y.) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Fadumo Korn is vice president of FORWARD–Germany, an organization dedicated to promoting action to stop FGM. She lives with her family in Munich. This powerful memoir by international anti-FGM activist Fadumo Korn portrays both her life-altering transformation after she undergoes a brutal female circumcision at the age of seven and her journey to recovery and empowerment. As a feisty nomad, Fadumo freely roamed the wild steppes of her natave Somalia until her mother delivered her into the hands of an excisor to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM), to be made a woman in the eyes of her tribe. The complications brought on by the circumcision provide the impetus to her search for health and her story. Fadumo first travels to the bustling city of Mogadishu and the household of a wealthy uncle, brother of the Somali president. She enters a world of luxury underpinned by political instability and cruelty in a country gearing for rebellion. As her symptoms worsen, she journeys to Germany, where she receives not only therapy but love and acceptance from the most unlikely of places. Fadumo Korn weaves together a sensitive understanding of traditional practices with revelations about their disturbing effects. This deftly crafted tale, full of sorrow and surprising humor, provides a candid history of a life sculpted by crippling rheumatism and an unexpected path to recovery. Korn begins by describing her life as a feisty Somali nomad, freely roaming her country's steppes. She undergoes FGM (female genital mutilation) at the age of seven, and everything changes. She is sent to Mogadishu for treatment of complications, and as civil war looms, finds herself living amid luxury in the capital with an uncle related to the president. Korn escapes the violence that envelops Somalia when she is sent to Europe for advanced medical care. There she finds physical and emotional release from trauma, marries a German, bears a child, and becomes an international anti-FGM activist. Early in the memoir, Fadumo writes that the status of Somali families increased with the birth of a son and that, as a girl, she gained status because she had four brothers. Female circumcision is a powerful tradition in Somalia marking a girl's transition to womanhood. According to Fadumo, "Tradition is powerful. It's unthinkable to work against tradition. No girl would want to avoid circumcision, for it would mean exclusion.� http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/highlights/viewHighlight.do~activeHighlightId=115649?intcmp=911 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. HIGHLIGHT RESOURCES --------------------------------------------------------------------- - International Day of Zero Tolerance to FGM, February 6th 2008 http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/ItemDetail.do~1133312?intcmp=911 - Sierra Leone Government to ban FGM http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/ItemDetail.do~1133340?intcmp=911 - The Foundation for Women's Health, Research and Development (FORWARD) http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/ItemDetail.do~1133390?intcmp=911 - Over 20,000 girls under 15 at high risk of FGM in England and Wales http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/ItemDetail.do~1133354?intcmp=911 - FGM and Islam http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/ItemDetail.do~1133373?intcmp=911 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. NEW! DISCUSSION: Educating women benefits the whole of society. It has a more significant impact on poverty and development than men's education. --------------------------------------------------------------------- According to the ICPD Programme of Action, "education, together with reproductive health, is one of the most important means of empowering women with the knowledge, skills and self-confidence necessary to participate fully in the development process". (Paragraph 4.2, excerpt). Please share your views and experiences with the community. http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/discussion/default/showDiscussion.do~id=6106?intcmp=911 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. NEW! Resource of Interest: Convention on the Global Commons - in Brief --------------------------------------------------------------------- The actions of countless people demonstrate that another world is possible. The list of successful campaigners for the global commons includes Muhammad Yunus, who is helping to lead Bangladesh out of extreme poverty with his program of microloans; Vandana Shiva, who is fighting brilliantly in India for patent rights; the German Hans Küng, who has developed the concept of a shared world ethos; Al Gore, who is making Americans more aware of global warming; Wangari Maathai, who is reforesting the deserts of Kenya; and Amartya Sen of India, who has developed principles for an alternative economic system. There are also many worthwhile mass initiatives such as the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, Agenda 21, Earth Charter, CIVICUS, Global Call to Action Against Poverty, One Campaign, World Ethos, Helsinki Process, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, World Social Forum, Network of Spiritual Progressives, Globalisation for the Common Good, and many, many more. Building on the work of these organizations and others, we present the first draft of a global action plan. This plan will provide the initial impetus for a multistakeholder consultation process, through which we expect eventually to contact thousands of individuals and organizations which are already focused on a particular aspect of the global commons. Our text addresses many complex issues, for each of which there are no doubt thousands of experts. We are also seeking the expression and understanding of many more perspectives as the basis for the development of possible courses of action. Consequently, this draft is a work in progress – an introductory proposal for a Convention on the Global Commons. It is based on what has been learned from the work of many people who have thought about and worked on these issues, and it will continue to grow with time. http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/ItemDetail.do~1134591?intcmp=911 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. MEMBER DIRECTORY - UPDATE YOUR MEMBER PROFILE! --------------------------------------------------------------------- With over 30,000 registered dgCommunities members, the Member Directory provides a one-stop shop for key contacts and collaboration worldwide. We invite you to take advantage of this unprecedented collaborative tool and add your profile today! Our new Member Directory enables you to more easily contact fellow professionals in the international development community for expert advice, information, and collaboration. You will be able to find development practitioners from over 200 countries, with interests and expertise in dozens of areas, including your own! We invite you to update your member profile to let your colleagues in development know more about your interests and expertise. You'll find the profiles very useful when using the Member Directory to communicate and collaborate with fellow members on your next program or project. Log onto the dgCommunity platform by clicking http://topics.developmentgateway.org/um/user/showUserAccount.do?intcmp=911 Then, under "Manage Your Account" in the upper right, click "Edit Member Profile". Quick Start - 4 Easy Steps: -ESTABLISH YOUR PROFILE Let your colleagues in development know more about your interests and expertise through your dgCommunities profile. Simply log in and go to My Gateway http://topics.developmentgateway.org/um/user/showUserAccount.do?intcmp=911 On upper right under "Manage Your Account", scroll down to "Edit Member Profile", and click "Edit this information". -SEARCH FOR MEMBERS Log in to the Development Gateway and go to "My Gateway". On upper right, scroll down to "Manage Your Contacts" and click "Search directory" to add new contacts. You can search by: name, country, interest, expertise, organization, organization type, or by keywords in member bios. Search Results will show you a list of members with a link to their profiles. You can also reach the Member Directory on My Gateway on the left column under "Member Services" when you scroll down and click "Directory" http://topics.developmentgateway.org/um/user/showMemberDirectory.do?intcmp=911 -COMMUNICATE WITH MEMBERS When viewing a member's profile, click "Contact this user". This will open a message box in which you can type and send a message through our message forwarding system. -CREATE OWN CONTACT LIST OF MEMBERS You can build a list of key contacts and form your own network of members. Searching for members will produce a results list; you can then select members to be added to your "My Contacts" list by clicking on the plus sign under "Status" for each desired contact. Or, when viewing a particular member's profile, click "Add this member to My Contacts". Your full contact list can be viewed when you log in, go to My Gateway, scroll down to "Manage Your Contacts" and click "View your dgCommunity contacts list". --------------------------------------------------------------------- DID YOU KNOW? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Did you know that as a member of the Gender and Development dgCommunity you can share your knowledge resources (e.g., websites, papers, reports, presentations, images, news, events, etc) in just about any format including streaming audio and video. Each resource will be described on a unique interactive page that will acknowledge you as the contributor and link to your profile. To view full text of knowledge resources, users will follow links to host websites, which will benefit from increased traffic from the Development Gateway community! Simply click on the "Add content here" hyperlink at: http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/Contribute.do~flag=url~from=SampleLayout?intcmp=911 Thank you! Anuradha Bhattacharjee Content Coordinator gender@developmentgateway.org http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender?intcmp=911

Publicado por Boletin Development Gateway el 14 de Febrero, 2008, 20:49 ~ Comentar ~ Referencias (0)