MAKE CHANGE: Recellular

Image via Flickr user Billie Hara

Surely most of us have been there: bringing our cellphones--cracked, scratched, held together by rubber bands but still functioning!--into our mobile phone stores and finally requesting an upgrade. But then what to do with those discarded old gadgets? Give them back to the retailer?

How about something a little more innovative, and with a bigger benefit to women?

Next time you find yourself with an extra cell phone, send it to the Women's Funding Network's Recellular program. Some of the phones will be refurbished and resold, with the  proceeds benefiting women's organizations; others will be programmed to dial 911 and donated to domestic abuse survivors, the elderly, and others at risk for use in emergencies. You'll be doing a double good deed: Recycling AND benefiting women!

Learn more about recycling your cell phone, or send in your old cell phones today!

1000 Words: A Knowing Look

A portrait by photographer Michelle McCarron of Corrine Sain, Program Director at Neighborhood House, North Richmond, California. From the series for Picturing Power & Potential, "The Women of North Richmond."

Health Versus Harm: Zero Tolerance on Violence Against Women and Girls

PART 1
This past weekend after my first lap running along the Seine then past the Louvre through the Tuileries, Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe, and back, I paused to stretch in front of the Louvre and thought, “I am the luckiest human being alive to run this. Go again? Yes. Go again? Then again!” When I was fully exhausted but sprinting to finish strong on the Champs-Élysées, I was applauded by tourists. I smiled and thought about how much I love endurance running and how much deeper the reasons why. I know what I look like out there sporting my Run for Congo Women t-shirt and Comrades 2010 hat: Determined. Physically healthy. Strong. That has always been the goal.

But, then, as I was walking down the Metro stairs sipping Pellegrino, I saw her. Head down. No shoes. Bare toes out. Unwashed. I will never see her face. She couldn’t even bear to lift her head to beg anymore. Why bother? She just sat there hunched over, huddled in defeat at the bottom of the stairs with a dirty empty cup. So, I gave. She is why I am so determined. She is why I run. She is why for three years I traveled alone while raising monies for girls and women’s health through Girls on the Run International and their charity, SoleMates. To see her. To speak with her. To mentor her. Then, to ensure change for her.

For these past weeks, I have had my own head down reading reports citing statistics about gender-based violence (GBV). I kept asking questions and hoping for answers that would somehow give sound reason as to why so many women and girls in this world are being harmed. With that harm what happens to their chance for physical health? How high are their risks of other vulnerabilities like HIV/AIDS?

Globally, one in three women will be beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime according to a 2010 fact sheet put out by Women Won’t Wait Campaign, International AIDS Women’s Caucus, and the International Women’s Health Coalition. According to Women for Women International’s article Violence Against Women and Girls, “A 2007 report and survey of grassroots Iraqi women found that 63.9% of respondents stated that violence against women in general was increasing, with 38.5% reporting that rape was increasing.”



Women for Women International’s research also depicts harrowing challenges in Africa, “Over the course of more than a decade of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), millions of lives have been lost and hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been raped in a strategic campaign of sexual violence employed by virtually all armed groups, including the military... In 2009, the violence is still increasing.”

As such in 2009, violence against girls was cited by the Clinton Global Initiative as an epidemic. From their web site, “According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in one year alone nearly 150 million girls experience some form of sexual violence. Rape, assault, exploitation, and trafficking devastate the lives of victims and contribute to the spread of HIV and AIDS.”

In fact, last year, the Clinton Global Initiative brought together nine organizations—the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the CDC Foundation, five United Nations organizations (UNICEF, UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNIFEM, and the WHO), the Nduna Foundation, and Grupo ABC—and each pledged their commitment to end violence, in particular sexual violence, against girls.

At AIDS 2010, the Guardian reported Bill Clinton and Bill Gates opened with a speech about why organizations should make the best use of donated monies due to the economic crisis hampering an increase in funding. Yet conference statistics cited epidemic numbers of violence against women and girls (VAW/G) and also how deep the links between gender-based violence (GBV) and HIV/AIDS. In fact, the American Bar Association’s article Universal Access and Human Rights: For Women and Girls, Too affirms the current challenge in the fight against HIV/AIDS is to acknowledge “the feminization of a modern day pandemic.”

While in Vienna, the Global AIDS Alliance (GAA), an advocacy organization that focuses on improving U.S., multilateral, and affected-country national government policy and funding for the global AIDS pandemic, held the press conference pictured here to announce their report, Political Breakthrough: Mobilizing Accelerated Action to End Violence Against Women and Girls by 2015.

After the press conference, I spoke with Lisa Schechtman who is the Policy Director of the Global AIDS Alliance. In a recent interview, she shared, “the new report was called ‘Political Breakthrough’ because, for the first time, three major AIDS donors and normative agencies (PEPFAR, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and UNAIDS), have placed GBV front and center in their efforts and have committed to providing funding dedicated to addressing this critical challenge—the first expression of political will.”

Lisa affirms needing more than political momentum, however, even as she acknowledges the inherent importance. “While political will starts as rhetoric, it allows for affected communities to demand action and for advocates and activists to hold donors and policymakers accountable for actually doing something—the second and most important expression of political will. It also allows us to trace where the money is going and what impact it is having.”

Enter funding. The problem is the reality. The places where HIV/AIDS are most prevalent are some of the most impoverished in our world. According to UNIFEM’s Backgrounder at AIDS 2010 “in Africa where the epidemic is most widespread, young women are three times more likely to be HIV-positive than young men.” The organization cites gender inequality as one of the most important reasons for this. Less control over their bodies and their lives leads to higher rates of HIV for women and young girls. Is that not another way to say, gender-based or sexual violence?

Even with all of the preceding, eliminating gender-based violence is not explicitly one of the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals hence some of the current funding challenges. Lisa explains, “very little funding from any source has been directed specifically to GBV. Slightly more funding has been directed to the intersection of GBV and HIV, but even this has been small and directed to piecemeal projects that do not advance comprehensive change or even meet the needs of the vast number of women and girls who experience violence. Through these smaller efforts supported by the international community and many other programs undertaken by local civil society around the world, we have learned not only that we can address violence, but how to do so effectively. It’s time to stop talking about this major human rights abuse and hold our governments accountable for doing what works at a scale that can reach everyone in need.”

The International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA) is a major step in ascertaining that goal. IVAWA is currently moving through Congress with bipartisan support and as Lisa shares, “it mandates a coordinated, multiagency multisectoral response to GBV across all USG diplomatic and international development channels. Recognizing that violence against women and girls has an impact on—and is impacted by—every area of a woman’s life and every part of society, the bill takes a holistic approach and, for the first time, makes violence against women and girls a foreign policy priority for the United States.”

Therefore, IVAWA, the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and how effective both female and male youth are as agents of mobilization and social change to end VAW/G for greater public health was also the focus of researchers and advocacy groups at AIDS 2010 and beyond.

Check out Her Blueprint on Thursday, August 12 for Part 2 of this article in which Kate goes in-depth with Remmy Shawa, Intern of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS, Yvonne Akoth of the Kenya Girl Guides Association, and other youth and women advocates who are taking huge strides in the prevention of gender-based violence and the rights of those living with HIV/AIDS.

BOOKS: Summer Schoolin'

Image via Flickr/Margolove

I have forever been an obsessive reader, I graduated with a BA in English, and I read for fun all the time. But for some reason the past few months, I've had a hard time reading anything more demanding than a graphic novel or more difficult than a seventh-grade reading level. (Not knocking those, either: Fun Home by Alison Bechdel is highly recommended, and I'm always a fan of revisiting Judy Blume!) I'm going to chalk it up to it being the summertime, and me falling victim to the Beach Read ethos that seems to float about from July to September. But I'm starting to feel a little more inspired, so I went searching for alternatives to the regular Summer reads.

Intervention in the Streets

A group of Blank Noise activists take over a bus in 2003. Image: flickr

In America, when a man directs unwanted attention towards a woman or initiates sexual advances, it's called sexual harassment. But in Northern India, the term is "eve teasing," and it's getting a strong backlash thanks to a coalition of female artists called Blank Noise. Last month, several women from various cities joined forces to share their experiences and walk the streets together. Calling themselves "Action Heroes," the women became both activists and performance artists.

Blank Noise began in Bangalore, as a student art project, in 2003. Mimicking the "Take Back The Night" movements in the United States, the group unites large groups of women and encourages them to walk the streets at night as a collective, making a statement to the men who could otherwise harass them individually. Participants "Reclaim the Streets" in other ways as well: from spray painting the testimonies of sexual harassment victims in public places, to wearing clothing bearing anti-harassment messages.

1000 WORDS: A-B-C

Global Fund for Women

Children in a community center in Morocco learn the basics of reading and writing; from the Changing Conditions slideshow in Economica.

Haiti: Displacement, TB, and Progress?

Walking into the media center at the 2010 World AIDS Conference was like being barraged. I came out of lectures to have people read my tag as media and then offer a plethora of business cards. Attend our press conference. Highlight us. Be in the know. Do good. OK. I will. The sense of being overwhelmed came from the fact that what everyone presented showed exactly how deep our world's public health crisis already is in terms of HIV/AIDS as well as related diseases, but also how much worse it could become if funding is less than needed due to the economic crisis.

Paul Farmer has worked in wide-ranging capacities for vulnerable communities the entire length of his career. His book Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor was a guide in my travels through South Africa pre- and post-Comrades and during the World Cup 2010. Thus, when I saw his name on a press release in Vienna, I decided to trust his voice about what the worlds’ needs are at a conference concentrating on health and human rights, before they may be fully acknowledged or funded.

When Home and Work are Separated by Hundreds of Miles

Photographer Arianna Sanesi submitted a photo essay to Economica that's really gotten under my skin. Arianna's photo essay, "Ludmilla's Story," captures a Ukrainian woman named Ludmilla who returns home from working as an elder caregiver in Italy to see her family in the Ukraine for the first time in three years.

Can you imagine going three years without seeing your family? This is one of those sacrifices that women around the world make all the time. I'll often complain about a 30 minute commute, or how hard it is to visit parents or friends who live in other parts of the country. "I haven't seen them in months!" I'll complain. Of course, Ludmilla's sacrifice is for her family. She sends a portion of her earnings back home every month, and some of the money she sends back was used to help pay for her daughter's wedding. It's a difficult position to be in--one many middle class American women (like me) will likely never face.

Apparently the trend of hiring migrant careworkers is growing in Italy, where families have the resources to pay for carework, and no time to take on the job themselves. Apparently the Ukrainian immigrant population in Italy is growing exponentially as a result of this demand--Ukraine was particularly hurt by the economic crisis, and the country's current inflation rate is nearing 17%. This seems to be just another iteration of that classic economic concept of supply and demand--Ukraine has the supply of unemployed women caregivers, and Italy has the demand for this kind of skilled labor. But the emotional and personal impact of this harsh economic reality is still mind boggling.

Economica: Women and the Global Economy [The International Museum of Women]
Ludmilla's Story [Economica]

BIG IDEAS: Gender Budgeting

Economist and gender budgeting expert Jane Midgley redistributed the Obama administration's budget for the U.S. to better address the unique needs of women. Says Midgley:

"The current budget is drastically weighted toward military spending. My budget shows a large reduction in military, homeland security, and prison spending; a large reduction in International Affairs spending due to the huge percentage of that category that goes to military and arms support; and increased social spending on housing, education, and community development."

What would the country look like with this kind of budget? Where could we make gains? Where might we experience setbacks?

Gender Budgeting and the U.S. [Economica: Women and the Global Economy]

1000 WORDS: One Child

A snapshot from Economica's "Womb Economics" slideshow, in the Family and Fertility section, about how women in China have contributed to the country's rapid economic growth, and what sacrifices they have made in the process. (Photo credit: Mimi Kuo-Deemer)

MAKE CHANGE: Sign Off on Fair Pay

In the U.S., women continue to make only $0.78 to every man's dollar for a day's work. Last year's passing of the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (Obama's first piece of legislation in office) was a step in the right direction, but the companion legislation, the Paycheck Fairness Act, stalled in the Senate and has yet to be passed.

Now, a year later, Obama has once again thrown his support behind fair pay legislation by encouraging the Senate to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act this term, saying, "This is not just a question of fairness for hard-working women. Paycheck discrimination hurts families who lose out on badly needed income. And with so many families depending on women's wages, it hurts the American economy as a whole."

Make Change by telling your representatives that you agree: the National Organization of Women (NOW) has made it incredibly easy for you to send a message to your representative asking them to ratify the Paycheck Fairness Act! Because not only could we all use that extra $.022 an hour, but we sure as hell deserve it. Send a message to your Senators today>>


For Women, What a Difference a Year Almost Made [Huffington Post]
Obama Endorses Paycheck Fairness Act [USA Today]
Facts About Equal Pay [National Organization of Women]

AIDS 2010: Rights Here, Rights Now

From check-in to landing, the flight home to Paris late last evening from Vienna, where I was attending the XVIII International AIDS Conference, was anything but smooth. Admittedly, once airborne and while flying through lightening, the Air France flight attendant had to slightly console me, even though the African woman adjacent to me had a chenille turquoise blanket wrapped around her eyes and head, and was clutching it outright every time we rocked or dipped. She had put away the book she was reading with the chapter entitled, “Living with HIV/AIDS.”

We landed safely. At baggage claim, while standing next to Professor Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, pictured here because she was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2008 for her shared discovery of HIV in 1983, I realized had the plane experienced fatal issues, the whole world would have recognized a monumental loss. Professor Barré-Sinoussi’s life is that significant to everyone.



With the “Rights Here, Rights Now” theme, the significance of human life and rights were forefront at AIDS 2010. I heard many participants, especially youth advocates and Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, invoking The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

In 1948, The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted UDHR and signed it here in Paris in response to the Holocaust, which The United States Holocaust Museum web site says allowed for the murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi. Therefore, UDHR asserts that the “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”

According to a report published by UNAIDS in November 2009, HIV/AIDS is the world’s fourth leading cause of death. Since 1981, the disease has killed 25 million people. In 2008, it claimed 2 million lives, yet that year an additional 2.7 million people became infected. At the same time, there were 33.4 million individuals living with HIV.

With over 770 volunteers, 228 sessions, 6,000 abstracts, and 193 countries, AIDS 2010 breathed human rights. Vienna’s Messe Wien conference center became a microcosm of a world where top researchers and doctors, people living with AIDS/HIV, Nobel Prize Laureates, activists, advocates, and artists, journalists, NGOs, GOs, and politicians (though less than desired) all converged to assess how the world will meet the AIDS/HIV United Nations Millennium Development Goals to:

1. Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.

2. Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it.

3. Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.

On Monday, July 19, AIDS 2010 opened with a speech by Bill Clinton and Bill Gates. By Wednesday, UNAIDS announced that top world personalities like Desmond Tutu, Irene Khan, Jacque Chirac, and Professor Françoise Barré-Sinoussi are joining with UNAIDS to bring about a prevention revolution. In that press conference’s release, Professor Barré-Sinoussi cites, “Today, for every 2 persons starting treatment, 5 new infections occur.”

That is, 7000 new infections daily.

Check back starting in August for more Her Blueprint posts in which Kate talks about other AIDS 2010-related issues, from the link between Gender-Based Violence and HIV/AIDS to Haiti’s tuberculosis crisis post-quake.