Simply Wonder-full.

P/s: I also love the Alpaca Reversible hat! Made in Peru by a group of women to improve their family’s income.

Women hold up half the sky — Chinese Proverb

Reality is hard. It is a startling revelation at times often because we choose to surround ourselves with our view and experience of the world. This Thanksgiving, I am reminded of reality when I sat down to read Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. In Half the Sky, Kristof and WuDunn throw an interesting twist into the conventional view of plights of women around the world: by telling their stories. From Cambodia to South Africa. From sex slaves to maternal health. By putting a name, emotion and passion into the stories. This tentative foray into the realm of story-telling melds surprising well with what is, essentially, a passionate call to action against our generation’s most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls worldwide.

The opening of the book follows the story of Srey Rath, a young Cambodian teenager, who was sold as a sex salve across the borders, ending up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where she endured routine brutality and constant humiliation. It was a huge shock to my system, as Malaysia is someplace I call my home town…  to read in such vivid detail the human rights violation done to Srey Rath was stunning in every sense.

These stories of human perseverance, injustice and ultimately hope, just like Srey Rath, are woven into three main issues: sex trafficking and forced prostitution; gender-based violence e.g. honor killings and mass rape and maternal mortaility. Sub issues include education, microcredit and religion. The stories in the book are shocking, but ultimately this is the central truth of the book: Women aren’t the problem but the solution. The plight of girls is no more a tragedy than an opportunity.

“It appears that more girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they were girls, than men were killed in all battles of the twentieth century. More girls are killed in this routine “gendercide” in any one decade than people were slaughtered in all the genocides of the twentieth century.

In the nineteenth century, the central moral challenge was slavery. In the twentieth century, it was the battle against totalitarianism. We believe that in this century, the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle for gender equality around the world. ”

Through stories, Kristof and WuDunn demonstrate how the key to economic progress lies in the fact that as a society, we need to stop ignoring women who hold up half the sky. Unleashing this incredible human potential is not only the right thing to do in terms of our own shared humanity, but also the best way to tackle poverty. They show how in vastly different circumstances, the endurance of the human spirit and how a little help can go a long way e.g. the simple act of iodizing salt to improve a baby’s IQ.

I won’t go into the details of the book because my summary will not do these incredible stories justice. However, on a personal level, this book’s message has imprinted itself deeply within my beliefs in international development. After all, how many books make such a  statement about a matter than concerns everyone because of our shared humanity? The stories of these women show me the resilience and amount of hope they have within themselves who have every reason to give up but continue on. It’s so moving and inspirational that I just want to shout it out loud and tell everyone about the issues Kristof and WuDunn have written about. If there is one thing that this book is about, it is the story of transformation.

Rating: 10/10

“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” — Derek Bok

The video competition was a huge success and what I thought to be a really creative way of engaging youth to think about issues about Canada-relations. The issues that came out of the contest, harness the collective capability and genius that would spur growth and research direction of the foundation. Some of the themes that emerged included: People as a resource, representation in the media, self-identity and green technology exchanges.

“Capabilities to develop new kinds of relationships, sense important developments, add value and turn nascent networked knowledge into compelling value are becoming the bread and butter of wealth creation and success.”

- Wikinomics, Don Tapscott

On a another level, it was a great learning opportunity for me to step into an area and network of which I was not really connected to, all because I stepped out of my network circle. It reminded me a great TED video by Ethan Zuckerman on Listening to Global Voices. He spoke about how even though the web connects the whole world, we really end up being stuck in our own web bubble rather than listening to what the world has to share.

So in the spirit of collaboration, here are my favourite sites on listening to global voices:

1) OpenIDEO: An online platform where people collaborate to design better for social good. It’s a wonderful dynamic resource on tackling global resources and I’m going to submit a solution to one of their problems soon!

2) World Pulse: A global network that broadcasts and unites women’s voices from all over to create a powerful voice for change. What I love about this is not only is it a print and web magazine but it’s also an interactive community newswire, PulseWire, where women can collaborate and connect to solve global problems.

3) Global Voices: An international community of bloggers who report on different global issues with topics ranging from arts to politics. It’s an amazing resource and my fav feature is the different languages that you can read the website in. (I occasionally flip the switch over to Indonesian, just cause! And it’s so interesting to read the same article both in English and in another language!)

4) paper.li: This is a little different than the above three platforms as it really is more a snapshot of the things/links that you tweet about, but I love the creative format and I find it super interesting the way it picks up on the different things I’m browse through online. Below is a snapshot of what it looks like and I thought I’ll share this one just for fun!

So..what global voices have you been listening to?

However, I’m not going to get into all of that today, as what it really got me wondering about is: The F-Word.

No, not the four letter one! The other one.

Feminism. Feminist.

It has been a word that has been widely disputed, campaigned for, ideologies have been formed around it, movements have been created, concepts of anti-;black-;post-;pro-; have been formed, and its meanings often contested. It’s a word that we don’t hear very often these days. Often replaced with an increasingly popularized term: women empowerment. I don’t blame this trend. It doesn’t have associations of a strong ( perhaps even negative connotation) past and it has the word “power” in it. Always a good bet But to understand why the increasing dis-popularity in the word, here’s a brief timeline of feminism (starting from where it really began to pick up):

Mid-1800s: Used to refer the “qualities of females”

1892: First International Women’s Conference, Paris: Start regular usage of term for a belief in and advocacy of equal rights for women based on the idea of the equality of the sexes.

Early 20th: Term rooted in the mobilization for women suffrage in Europe and US

1920s: First Wave of feminism: To achieve basic political rights

Late 1960s — Early 1970s: Second Wave of feminism: Fight for greater equality across the board — in education, workplace and home.

Early 1990s: Third Wave Feminism: Arose as response to critiques of the 2nd wave. Emphasized “identity” as a site of gender struggle with a post-structuralist take on gender and sexuality.

Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

As history has graciously shown, the concept of feminism itself has evolved from as simple description demonstrating feminine qualities to a full blown movement. The term began to pick up when it tried to capture the commitment to womens’ equal rights. But is it really sufficient enough to capture women’s oppression/position that currently extends into the structure of our societies, culture and perceptions?

I believe that given the controversies of the term, and controversial social movements, the usage of the word has either taken a very taboo or powerful connotation. Taboo in a sense that women organization’s do not call themselves feminist ( often replacing it with empowerment) but powerful, in a sense that when used, the usage is noticed. For example, the Dalai Lama in the recent Vancouver Peace Summit calling himself a feminist.

“I call myself a feminist. Isn’t that what you call someone who fights for women’s rights?” — Dalai Lama

It is tempting to think that in order to avoid the “somewhat” negative associations with the word “feminist”, we try to best articulate our beliefs in women, with other buzz words like “empowerment” to capture the range of meanings feminism brings.

The truth is, feminism has taken on a term to capture views on justice for women, and feminists are committed to bringing about social change to end injustice against women.

So, what does feminism mean to you?

The main speakers of the event would be World Peace through Personal Peace @ UBC Chan Centre:

1) The Dalai Lama “When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us.”

2) Desmond Tutu …is a South African cleric and activitist who won a Nobel Peace Prize in his fight against apartheid. He also won the Albert Schweitzer prize for Humanitarianism and the Gandhi Peace Price. Desmond Tutu campaigns for human rights, the oppressed, AIDS, homophobia, poverty and racism. Tutu is widely regarded as “South Africa’s moral conscience” and has been described by Nelson Mandela, as ” the voice of the voiceless.”

3)  Matthieu Ricard — http://www.matthieuricard.org/ …is a Buddhist monk, author and photographer in Nepal. Dubbed as “the happiest person in the world” by scientists, Ricard’s books mainly center around the meaning and fulfillment of happiness. He is also deeply engaged in the effect of mind training of the brain at Princeton and Berkeley. Ricard received the French National Order of Merit for his humanitarian work in the East.

4)  Eckhart Tolle … is a Canadian-German spiritual teacher, author and motivational speaker. He is most famous for his book “The Power of Now”, which emphasizes not being caught up in thoughts of the past and future and being aware of the present moment. It has been a NY Time bestbeller, and listed as one of Oprah’s favourite book. Since, he has published “A New Earth” exploring the structure of the human ego and how it acts to distract people from their present experiences.

Other notable speakers are:

Co-Recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize Mairead Maguire and Betty Williams for their work in Peaceful resolutions in Northern Ireland, Nobel Peace Prize Jody Williams for her work in banning landmines, Ken Robinson (Creativity expert), Daniel Siegel, Kim Campbell and Ashley Judd.

Tickets start at $100 for the main event and $60 for the others.

The event can be viewed here. Tickets can be purchased here.

See YOU there!

Note: Bios of speakers and pictures are taken and paraphrased (bios) from Wikipedia