Happy New Year friends! From time to time, DAWN likes to post updates and announcements from our newsletters for our visitors.
Read the latest note from our Executive Director in our December 2011 newsletter. If you'd like to signup to receive newsletters, click here.
December 28, 2011
Dear Friends,
It's been a very long six months for DAWN. Certainly far too long since we sent our last newsletter! When I returned from Kenya in late July, I became immersed with my work at Oxfam around the massive emergency in East Africa, where 13 million people across five east African countries have been facing the worst drought in sixty years and millions in southern Somalia were suffering from famine, both which still continue to this day.
Like so many other African diaspora, I found myself personally and professionally pulled between my life here and the needs there. I couldn't focus on much else and the crisis became all I could think about. My heart and mind were heavy with the massive needs of 13 million people. As a result, DAWN had to switch gears and we laid low with our outreach and marketing while our programs continued.
I realized that for real change and impact, my heart and attention must continue with DAWN and the diaspora, fully and completely. That's why I've decided to leave my policy work in DC and make it official. We are finally becoming a full time non-profit organization and will expand nationally in the new year.
As of January 2012, I'll be based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, home to one of the largest Horn of Africa and Liberian diaspora communities in the United States, and continue building DAWN's foundation. Our DC chapter will continue and we look forward to starting chapters in other cities, like New York and San Francisco.
As I read this month's special newsletter, I'm very proud of DAWN's accomplishments and thankful to be around so many strong women. In five months, we were featured in more media, we launched a new event for our Twitter friends, presented at a major conference, and held two community service project fundraisers ! All the while celebrating our fourth birthday!I thank you for believing in us and supporting DAWN over the years.
If you would like to help us with our expansion, as a volunteer, advisor, or future donor, please contact us at info@dawners.org! 2012 is the year for more great things to come and we are ready for it! Like our saying goes, we must be Fearless in Our Excellence!
Thank you,
Semhar Araia Executive Director and Founder of DAWN
Born into a nomadic, pastoral family and motivate by love for the fragile, semi-arid landscape and the pastoral way of life, Fatima Jibrell of Somalia has dedicated her life to the preservation of the natural environment in Somalia.
1n 1993, Fatima founded Horn Relief, a non-profit organization, to mobilize local and international resources for protection of the fragile pastoral environment in Somalia. In the late 1990s, Fatima organized and advocated against unrestricted use of charcoal in Puntland.
Through Fatima's powerful advocacy, the Puntland regional government of northeast Somalia was persuaded to prohibit export of charcoal through the port of Bosasso in 2002. This has reduced charcoal exports by 80 percent. In 2004, Fatima established Sun Fire Cooking to promote solar alternatives to charcoal cooking. Bender Bayla in Somalia is the first solar cooking village in the world. By 2007, Sun Fire had distributed over 1,000 solar cookers to villages.
I nominated Fatima for the National Geographic Conservation Award, which she received in 2008. When we met then, she told me she had just completed a first-hand assessment of the environmental degradation along the Somali coastline. She walked the coastline-a journey of about 100 miles, I believe-for days for this assessment. She was 60 or so at the time!
In an era when Somalia's public image has been reduced to conflict and piracy, Somalis need and deserve recognition of someone that represents their very best efforts in working for peace and restoring their ravaged natural, social, and political environments.
Fatima Jibrell has shown through her life and work that she represents the best aspects of Somali pastoralist culture, peace building, love for the natural environment, and belief in Islam as a religion of caring and commitment. A true African heroine!
I came across a headline today on the internet which pretty much sums up my problem with our current approach to International Women’s Day. It read: “A Day For Women”.
As I looked for more, I found endless statements, press releases and speeches of women’s rights not yet achieved, or coverage that either highlighted the ongoing suffering and violence against women. I also found laudable attempts for recognizing women’s triumphs and sources of inspiration, like The Guardian’s great list of the Top 100 women and Newsweek & Daily Beast’ 150 Women Who Shake The World list.
Well what does it mean to have a “Day for Women”? If that’s all we can come up with for one day, what does that say about the other 364 days when the rest of the world returns to their normal activities? Can my gender’s accomplishments really be embodied and recognized in one day or in a list of names?
The obvious answer is no.
International Women’s Day is today and every day.
Millions of women and girls around the world overcome unimaginable challenges of poverty, sexism, and injustice on a daily basis to fight for their rights. Women are the first victims of conflict and insecurity, as evidenced by the stories of rape and gender-based violence in various parts of the world. Yet as we've seen recently in Egypt, Cote D'Ivoire, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, these women are still strong enough to keep on fighting. Some even manage to get an education or a a small loan to pick themselves and their families up out of poverty.
Despite these success and achievements, the international community has yet to integrate notions of gender equality and justice into our everyday framework. If we are serious about putting women’s rights at the forefront of any agenda, then the language, tone and scope needs to change. And that starts with women.
As the motto of my organization, the Diaspora African Women’s Network, says, we believe that Change Starts with Women. Women must use the great gift of fearlessness that we possess in everything we do. We must own our stories, document them, share them and tell it to everyone we know. We must insert ourselves and lead in more conversations. We must expect more and explain to those in power how we want it done.
For real change, it requires the active participation, coordination and leadership from women and supporters of women's groups at all levels of society. It requires diverse partnerships – not based on gender but based on equality. It means exposure in media and on the web on a regular basis by all – through stories and narratives that show how women’s rights are everyone’s rights.
That was the first thing I learned as a child. It was my daily reality to see women pushing, owning and claiming for their independence, even when they weren’t given that power to do so. My mother balanced a full time job, took care of the family, served as a leader in our community, and still managed to take care of herself through it all. She established her own business, met with elected US officials as a taxpaying American to seek their support for Eritrea’s thirty year struggle for independence, participated in local and national politics and still made time for my brother and I to have birthday parties, sleepovers and family visits. She carried her voice as a woman, an African and a women’s health expert near and far.
So the sight of women, organizations, communities and leaders organized; demanding and expecting nothing short of justice and equality is exactly what the world needs to see and hear.
To my sisters and supporters of women’s rights, expect more. Be fearless. And at all times, make yourself heard.
I will see to it that this is my mission 365 days of the year.
Semhar Araia is the Founder and Executive Director of DAWN, the Diaspora African Women's Network.
This article was originally published in the May Edition of Monday Developments, a monthly publication of Interaction. Read the original post here.
Public interest in international issues has increased in the last decade. Publicity given to the protests during international trade summits and economic forums has highlighted the interconnectivity of the world and how decisions made in Washington, DC affect rural farmers around the world. In addition, many celebrities have partnered with international NGOs and various UN agencies to bring issues such as malaria prevention, the economic development of women and access to clean water to the forefront.
In this media-driven age, these celebrities can significantly increase attention to substantive global issues and their involvement can encourage more young people to enter the international development workforce. Other new recruits include children of immigrant parents from the developing world who have visited their parents’ homeland, been affected by the poverty and despair they have witnessed firsthand and felt compelled to help the situation.
Whatever the motivation to enter this field, from the outside, a career in international development seems like a fun and exciting job, because it often involves traveling to exotic, far-away places. But breaking into the field is not easy. It requires a lot of training, diverse skills, and experience, along with a bit of luck to get a foot in the door. If you believe this profession is your life’s mission, you must be innovative and tenacious if you want to succeed. In addition, skill development must be a career-long commitment.
There are essentially three stages in an international development career:
After a college degree and several months of working in the political capitol of the Western world, I know a bit about power. Daily, I experience the power of crisp black suits, sleek cars, and boldly colored heels clicking their own new rhythms into the echo of marble halls.
However, Washingtonians may encounter an affront to this idea of power, through the advertisements of CARE, a nongovernmental refugee organization. In its trademark public campaign, CARE portrays a refugee woman, very young or very old, dressed in the tradition of her country and looking deep into the camera's eye. The universal caption: "I Am Powerful."
In the midst of Washington, D.C., this may seem more a wistful ideal than reality. Reality teaches that even the most educated and top-earning women only make 72 cents on a man's dollar, and that women around the world are most vulnerable to illiteracy, poverty, domestic abuse, and a lack of access to the handbag of characteristics which we call "power." Yet these women stare out evenly from photographs and billboards to silently declare that they, even in a displaced state, are powerful.
Last week, I attended the first African First Ladies' Leadership Health Summit in Los Angeles, California where over 400 participants from the private sector, public sector and Hollywood came together to discuss maternal health and child survival, HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria, and girl's education. The event was hosted by African Synergy and US Doctors for Africa.
To say it was impressive is an understatement. For two days, we sat through panels, luncheons, and in-depth breakout sessions that ended with an extravagant evening gala and a sense of accomplishment with actionable goals and pledges for new commitments. For the first time, a summit was held focusing on the role of the First Ladies and the international community towards improving Africa's development. Various high-profile speakers delivered remarks, including the First Ladies, as well as Melanne Verveer, the US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, Sarah Brown, wife of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Zainab Salbi, founder and CEO of Women for Women International, actress and activist Maria Bello, and the First Lady of California Maria Shriver.
This historic gathering went above and beyond the expectations of many with a balanced mix of policy expertise, pomp and circumstance, and constructive engagement on serious issues. It was an important first step towards the kind of global exchange that is needed. What most impressed me was the passion and conviction that each First Lady spoke with. One by one, they introduced their own country's policies and new approaches to improve women's health, such as Mozambique's drafting of gender equity laws and Nigeria's "Mama Kit".
It's even more important, however, that this dialogue be expanded to include more African voices, particularly from civil society and the diaspora in future exchanges. To improve the health and well-being of women and girls in Africa, all stakeholders must be at the same table, to the same summit, with the same opportunity to participate in these discussions. Civil society's role in peace and development cannot be overemphasized. It is my hope that at the next African First Ladies Leadership Health Summit, the First Ladies will have the opportunity to meet with more African civil society organizations from Africa and the diaspora and engage with them on the most critical issues affecting their beloved Africa.
The Diaspora African Women's Network (DAWN) is an organization whose mission is to develop and support talented women and girls of the African diaspora focused on African affairs.
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