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“There is nothing to compare to seeing a woman coming in with a fistula and being healed; there is nothing more rewarding than seeing a premature baby who can only survive in an incubator, leave breathing for itself and able to go home. These rewards, they are immeasurable.”
Edna Adan has dedicated her life to building Somalia’s first maternity hospital, and campaigning against FGM. Now she is looking for new allies in the fight against gender based violence.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/23/somaliland-womens-rights-gender-violence
Photo: Edna Adan Ismail, the former first lady of Somalia, in front of the maternity hospital she built in Hargeisa, Somaliland. The hospital has since been completed.
Photograph: David Gough for the Guardian
How food is helping girls stay in school.
In Somalia, school meals are helping more girls continue in school, including these at the Abdirahman Godyare primary school.
Girls have often been expected to stay home and help with chores, but the daily meals encourage families to continue sending them to class.
(Photo: WFP/Laila Ali, 21 October 2013)
Postcards from hell?
Every year, Foreign Policy magazine publishes a feature called Postcards from Hell: a series of photos from what it calls “the world’s 50 worst places.”
These are countries that top the Fragile States Index. Are these really the worst places in the world? Are they full of nothing but disease, poverty, terrorism and war, as Foreign Policy would have us believe?
Our colleagues from the One Campaign brought our attention to photos from the Guardian Witness initiative, of how people who live in these places see their homes and communities:
Have a look at http://www.one.org/us/2014/07/02/the-50-worst-places-to-live-these-photos-tell-a-different-story/
Photo: A beach in Mogadishu, Somalia. Photo by @zahraqoranne
Meet Myanmar’s first female rap duo, Thazin Nyunt Aung and Aye Aye Aung. They are known as Y.A.K. and play in small clubs and cultural events around the country rapping about their culture’s ideas of femininity.
They focus on writing songs that elevate the status of women, and hope their music will gain wider acceptance as the country flourishes and changes under its new democratic leadership after decades of military rule.
Photograph: Nicholas Weissman
This Woman Is Using Graffiti to Change the Way Her Country Thinks About Girls. Laila Ajjawi is determined to make positive change within her impoverished community.
On a concrete wall in the alleyway of a Palestinian refugee camp in Irbid, Jordan, Laila Ajjawi works quickly, switching between the three spray-paint bottles that sit at her feet. Within 20 minutes, she has scrawled Arabic letters onto the veil of a girl with cavernous eyes and painted a feather quill by her side. Her mural is nearly complete.
Draped in a dark, paint-splattered cloak with a black respirator strapped over her hijab, Laila, 25, looks like a bona fide superhero. The petite graffiti artist even has a superpower: talking through walls. “My energy will be reflected from walls to people,” she said, explaining that people will then take her message to others.
Read more here: http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a50015/this-palestinian-refugee-graffiti-artist-empowers-girls-with-street-art/
Photograph: Reuters/Tiksa Negeri
Meet the female pilots who are taking over Zimbabwe and Ethiopia’s skies
On Nov. 18, the Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to
Bangkok, Thailand had something different to it: it was completely
operated by a female crew, from ground operations all the way to the
sky. Captain Amsale Gualu was assisted by a female co-pilot, Selam
Tesfaye, and by an all-female cabin crew and female ground staff. This
was a first in the history of the airline—and likely in that of African
aviation.
Read more here: http://qz.com/556243/photos-meet-the-female-pilots-who-are-taking-over-zimbabwe-and-ethiopias-skies/
Puran Bhatt expertly wields his handcrafted puppet (Credit: Mariellen Ward)
‘A man on a mission: renowned puppeteer Puran Bhatt is determined to save Delhi’s Kathputli colony from bulldozers.
Bhatt is just as passionate about preserving the traditional Indian arts as he is about saving his community from demolition. “We would like to see an artist village developed where we can live and many different traditional skills can be preserved and taught, with performances in the evenings. A lot of kids don’t even know what a puppet is today. So we also need to educate people." ‘
Read the story here: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20151116-the-puppeteer-who-saved-a-slum
Christine Letooya harvests maize in her farm in Lolmusikopyi village, Samburu, Kenya. A World Vision scheme in the county helps support farmers to build resilience to drought. All photographs: Robert Kibet
On a slope overlooking the rugged land of dry shrubs around Lolmusikopyi village in Kenya’s Samburu county, Christine Letooya is busy harvesting her crop.
Letooya plucks the ripe cobs of maize from between the papery leaves. Like all farmers, she works long hours but at least this toil is safe – she used to be a pastoralist but armed raids by cattle rustlers persuaded the mother of four to change her way of life.
“Five years ago, our village was raided by armed young men from the Pokot community. They made away with our herds, leaving us at the mercy of relief aid. We had to relocate to safer grounds,” says Letooya, who is wearing a traditional Samburu necklace of coloured beads.
With the help of charity World Vision, Letooya decided to embark on sustainable farming through a project to support farmers in this notoriously harsh terrain with seeds and training. Now in its third year, the scheme offers alternative livelihoods to Samburu, helps to combat malnutrition, and equips local people to cope with more frequent droughts.
In India, girls go surfing
Ishita was India’s first female surfer, and now she teaches young girls not only how to surf but also to be whoever they want to be. Watch her inspirational story here:
https://www.facebook.com/Upworthy/videos/1076627229044801/
Afghanistan’s female marathon runner defies danger to go the distance
‘Earlier this month, 25-year-old Zainab took part in Afghanistan’s first official marathon, held in Bamiyan. The pioneering female runner talks about her training, her experiences, the opposition she faces when participating in sport, and her hopes to inspire other women and engender change.’
Watch her in action here:
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