Oct 22, 2010

Press Release: AWOMI Sam Notaire Donation

Dakar, Senegal
October 21, 2010


Press Release: AWOMI Sam Notaire Donation

The Mayor of Sam Notaire ,Dieynaba Fall
AWOMI visited the Sam Notaire Municipality of Guediawaye, Senegal, on September 26, 2010 to donate some items to the community where about 300 families were affected by floods during the months of August and September.


The donation exercise was organized in partnership with the munipality’s mayor, Dieynaba Fall, as a follow up to an initial visit by AWOMI on September 14, 2010, when AWOMI assessed the damage, talked to inhabitants about their challenges and identified possible areas of assistance for the people living in Cité Diokhomm. The donation consisted of fifty (50) sacks of 25kg rice, 225 bottles of bleach, and 25 boxes of 25 bars of soap each. 

In addition, the municipality received 150 treated mosquito nets to help prevent further cases of malaria infections. The beneficiaries expressed their gratitude to AWOMI, saying it was the first time they received such assistance from an NGO since the flood situation took a turn for the worse five years ago. They also thanked their mayor profusely for her tireless efforts in improving their living situations. Members of the audience at the donation included the community Imam (religious leader), the president of youth associations, the head of the community’s council, and members of local women’s groups.
After introducing everyone present and detailing the items for donation, Ibrahima Sene, the community council president applauded AWOMI’s efforts at reaching out to the Sam Notaire municipality to hear their grievances and going an extra mile to provide them with some necessary relief.

Women rejoicing for announcement of two grant schemes
for local women's organizations to address the flood
situation
Mrs. Ndoumba Tall, in reaction to AWOMI’s announcement of issuing out grants to two local women’s organizations, spoke on behalf of the women in the community and said:
“We are so happy to receive you here. Your help is meaningful because when you came here we shared with you the hardships we are facing and you promised to do something for us. Today you have come to give all these things that we really need. We promise you that you won’t be disappointed if you provide us with small grants. We are ready to work under your supervision in order to participate in the social development of our locality. We cannot thank you enough.”

 AWOMI Financial Administrator Sophie Sarr making
a speech during the donation exercise.

AWOMI Financial and Administrative Manager Sophie Sarr gave a speech to elaborate more on the organizations activities and its work with local women’s groups across Africa.

She was followed by Ms. Fall, the mayor, who thanked AWOMI for collaborating with her to provide flood relief. She noted that she had contacted three NGOs and many public leaders, but only got a positive response from AWOMI.
The Mayor and AWOMI's Coordinator


Some of the women who were affected by the floods

Emotions running high during the donation

Oct 15, 2010

Blog Action Day 2010 on Water: Post by Jemila (YOWLI '08)

This article was written by YOWLI 2008 graduate and AWOMI regional program coordinator Jemila Abdulai and was originally published on her website.
--

Scale of Preference: Water Vs. Oil?
The idea of economics being a social science is no novelty and even though the notion dates back as far as the era of Adam Smith and the other fathers of economics, it still holds true today. It would seem that every being, society or entity is forever in the pursuit of that elusive – or to put it in economic terms, scarce – something. For some select countries like the United States, that elusive or increasingly scarce thing is oil. For most of the world however, and particularly the impoverished world, that commodity is oil's arch-rival, water.
Nothing lasts forever and that applies especially to natural resources that tend to be used up with no thought of their replenishment. The world literally goes crazy because of this commodity oil. All things being equal (ceteris paribus), when global oil prices drop, everyone - with the possible exception of suppliers - rejoices. When the prices rise - as they seem to do more frequently given their increasing scarcity - everyone's a-panicking. Except maybe the suppliers, again. For countries like Senegal where there's a frighteningly high dependence on the earth's black gold for keeping the economy afloat, fluctuations in oil prices wreck havoc on more than just electrical appliances. At the very least however, Senegal is in a pretty okay state when it comes to oil's main competitor: water

Oct 14, 2010

YOWLI Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

           What is YOWLI?

YOWLI stands for the Young Women’s Knowledge and Leadership Institute. The YOWLI is a training and networking event held for two weeks to a month every two years. It contributes in nurturing democratic citizenship and dialogue between Africa and its Diaspora. It brings together young people age 18 to 25 with vast reserves of energy and potentials to critically question the state of things and seek sustainable development answers.


        What are some of the reasons to participate in YOWLI?

-Your knowledge of economic development processes will be enhanced
-You will get to network with fellow YOWLI participants and be part of a growing network of over 1,000 African youth committed to women’s economic and social justice.
-You will gain support and training in monitoring the realization of your economic and social rights.
          Where and when will YOWLI 2010 take place?


YOWLI 2010 will take place at Cours Sainte Marie de Hann, Senegal from Dec. 19 to Jan. 2 with a culminating international conference on Dec. 29. Cours Sainte Marie de Hann is a school for ages ranging from Kindergarten to high school in DakarSenegal. It was founded in 1949-1950 and belongs to a group of private schools in the Dakar Diocese of the Catholic Church.

The YOWLI 2010 trainers and facilitators are a team of diverse and seasoned women’s rights activists, economists, and researchers. They include:

-       Yassine Fall (Senegal)
-       Hameda Deedat (South Africa)
-       Sylvia Tereka (Uganda)
-       Ifeona Fulani (US)
-       Arame Tall (Senegal)
-       Paula Matanbe (US)
-       Mashadi Matanbe (US)
-       Niousha Roshani
 To find out more about the YOWLI 2010 trainers, please check the facilitators post.
How do I cover the costs associated with attending and participating in YOWLI 2010?
      Accepted candidates are encouraged to undertake some fundraising prior to the start of YOWLI 2010 by approaching local and national NGOs, UN agencies, and so on. Those participants who cannot cover their costs will be supported by AWOMI.
Where can I apply for or check the status of my application for YOWLI 2010?
      The YOWLI 2010 application cycle is currently closed. Final candidates who are selected to participate in YOWLI 2010 will be notified via email by the end of October 2010 and the final list will also be made available on the AWOMI blog.
How can I get additional information on YOWLI and AWOMI?
      For more information, kindly contact the AWOMI team at awomi[at]awomi[dot]org.
 


Oct 11, 2010

YOWLEE UPDATE

YOWLEE UPDATE : Esther's inspiring letter


My name is PrettyEsta. I live in a box. Actually, two and a half boxes, inside a bigger box that sits in Namibia. There are people above, below and on all sides that live in their own boxes. You'd think I'd have lots of friends, but the fact is I am totally by myself all the time. Even when I'm standing in the elevator and it's filled with people, I am quite alone, like Siberia, or maybe the Moon. I think I must be on my own planet -- like The Little Prince. I look very much like a normal, attractive woman -- nobody even suspects that I am really an extraterrestrial. If those people had any idea what's really growing inside me, they'd run away screaming with disgust and horror. You see, there's an alien that came in through my back door one day years ago when I wasn't paying attention.
 The fact that I do look so ordinary is, or should be, what's so scary to the men that size me up, on the elevator, in the street, or even in the park. Those poor, unsuspecting suckers who might invite me out for dinner, never knowing or suspecting that next to them sits Typhoid Mary. That's what I feel like -- think about it -- if I were to let one of those guys kiss me, such an innocent, innocent thing, I could be found guilty of attempted murder. I think the prevailing attitude could be nicely summed up by something I heard that cops like to say "You can shoot me or you can stab me but just don't bleed on me."
It is a terrible thing to die from AIDS, but it's also sometimes even harder to live with it. I've lived with it for years, and I've been waiting since my "official" diagnosis  for the other shoe to drop. So if you're thinking that AIDS is a death sentence, think again -- I'm here to tell you that I wait and I wait for something horrible to happen and it never does. I feel so good physically that it's hard to believe that there are billions of killer cells attacking me 24/7. So what am I supposed to do? I tried being up-front but I lost every friend I had. Other people, normal people can't deal with it, it's just too horrible. So how do we go on? It's so hard to have self-confidence, to love oneself, to be a good person, to feel hopeful -- and that's if you're "normal." How do we keep going when all future hope is destroyed by a simple blood test? One day you're part of the human race, and the next you're an outlaw, just like that.
YOWLI 2008 was not only a space to share my life experience but was a home full of love and lots of friends.
 I had this fantasy that I think about whenever I get scared, or feel lonely and sad that’s the love I got at YOWLI 2008 a fantacy of self acceptance. And to be out side the box.

Thank you YOWLI

Oct 6, 2010

Meet the YOWLI 2010 Facilitators (II)

YASSINE FALL

Yassine Fall is an economist educated in Senegal, France and the USA with 26 years of experience in development research, policy formulation and program implementation. She has been with the United Nations for 10 years. She is the new Interim Director of INSTRAW now part of UN Women. She first served as UNIFEM Regional Director for Francophone and Lusophone West and Central Africa for two years.  For the past eight years Yassine Fall has served as UNIFEM’s Global Economics Advisor based in New York. During this tenure she was seconded to the UN Millennium Project under the request of Prof Jeffry Sachs who appointed her as Senior Policy Advisor on gender and the MDGs.  She contributed substantively in the Millennium Project including the publication”The End of Poverty”; in setting up the Millennium village in Senegal and in resource mobilization for the Millennium villages. Before returning to UNIFEM she produced two guidebooks on how to meet MDG 3. She recently launched at the 2010 CSW, in partnership with UNDP, the publication entitled “Making the MDG Work    Better for Women”. 


Yassine is among the champions for women’s empowerment in Africa and the African Diaspora. She is the mentor of the African Women Millennium Initiative on Poverty and Human Rights (AWOMI) which organizes every 2 years the Young Women Knowledge and Leadership Institute (YOWLI) bringing together for 1 month youth from all over Africa and its Diaspora to learn how to enhance their participation in development, how to network and build strategic partnerships for fighting poverty. A particular emphasis of her recent work has been to address the gender dimensions of the global food crisis; the social and gender implications of the global financial and economic crisis; the interconnections between economics, gender and HIV/AIDS.  Yassine Fall served a five-year long term leading as Executive Director of the Association of African Women for Research and Development (AAWORD), a sister organization to CODESRIA and network of African women in academia and gender equality advocates.Through her leadership and organizational management AAWORD was able to multiply its resource base tenfold and mobilize record numbers of African women to join its membership.

Yassine Fall’s record also includes five years of teaching mathematics and applied economics in US schools and twelve years of work at the head of her own international consulting firm, “African Economists for Social Change”. This successful enterprise entailed work throughout Africa combining field research, capacity development and policy analysis on various development issues, such as: macroeconomics and public sector reform, poverty elimination policies, gender and development, international trade assessment, emergency relief operations, environmental and natural resources management,  land tenure analysis, child labor studies and food security. Fall was the first expert to design World Food Program guidelines on gender equality in emergency operations and food distribution. She contributed substantially to the ILO – West Africa child labor policy using experiences and lessons from long-term engagement with the field. She was a lead expert on the fight against desertification in the Sahel in the 1980s supporting the FAO in promoting environmental health before climate change issues became a global priority.

Yassine played an important role in setting up vital global networks and organizations. She was selected by Mr. Georges Soros in 2000 together with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and President Amadou Toumani Toure of Mali, Her Excellency Zainab Bangoura, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sierra Leone, International Criminal Court Judge Keba Mbaye to name a few,  to constitute the founding  Board of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) generously founded by the Soros Foundation. For four years she worked with President Sirleaf as Chair helping manage and allocate OSIWA’s multi-million-dollar funds as grants to civil society and selected Government entities in West Africa for the promotion of democratic development.  

Yassine Fall is fluent in English, French, Spanish and Wolof. She is the author of several publications including books and articles.



IFEONA FULANI


Ifeona Fulani holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from New York University and an MFA in Creative Writing, also from NYU. Her research interests include Literatures of Africa and the African Diaspora, Caribbean Literary and Cultural Studies, Globalization and Transnational Feminisms. She recently completed an edited volume of essays titled Archipalegos of Sound: Transnational Caribbeanities, Women and Music. The essays in the volume take a pan-Caribbean approach to examining the music, performance and cultural impact of influential female artists either based in the Caribbean or in the Caribbean’s diasporas.

Her next book project, provisionally titled Black Women Reconfiguring the Black Atlantic  and developing on her doctoral dissertation, feminizes the discourse of black internationalism and examines the formation of black women’s intellectual communities within the African diaspora. It is a comparative, interdisciplinary study that examines black women’s fiction and film narratives from the US, the Caribbean and the UK, together with literary, film and cultural criticism.

Ifeona Fulani is the author of a number of scholarly articles, a novel, Seasons of Dust and a collection of short stories, Ten Days in Jamaica. She is on the faculty of the Liberal Studies Program at New York University.


ARAME TALL
Arame Tall is a proud native and current resident of Dakar, Senegal, in addition to being a doctorate student in African Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.

 Her dissertation topic, Reducing vulnerability to climate-related disasters in Africa. A cross-country comparative analysis of disaster management policies across Africa: which way forward in the face of a changing climate?” highlights her passion for climate and environmental issues.  She is the recipient of a number of fellowships and awards including the Pulitzer Foundation scholarship for academic excellence, which she received while pursuing her graduate degree on climate change and society at Columbia University in New York, USA.

 Prior to that, Arame completed her undergraduate degree at Smith College in Massachusetts, USA. The women and youth empowerment enthusiast has worked with international organizations like the U.N. Institute for Training and Research in Geneva, Switzerland, the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Center in the Hague, Netherlands, and Senegal’s Centre de Suivi Ecologique. She also has a number of publications around climate change issues and is the founder of Afro-Optimism, an Africa-promotion foundation based in Geneva, Switzerland. During her leisure hours Arame enjoys reading, cooking, traveling and horse-back riding.


NIOUSHA ROSHANI

Niousha Roshani is the founder of the Nukanti Foundation for Children working with children affected by extreme violence and poverty, as well as an advocate of children's rights. She is currently pursuing a doctorate in Child Anthropology at the University of London while continuing her work and research with war-affected children in Colombia. She directed a  recently completed documentary on the lives of children affected by the war in Colombia titled *I Don't Know Why They Call Us Children* screened at various film festivals in the UK and Spain.

Oct 1, 2010

INTERVIEW DATES

Hi Guys!!

We will start the interviews on Monday the 4th of October to Wednesday the 13th of October.

Check your email for time slots to set up your interviews.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us at awomiweb@gmail.com or awomi@awomi.org

Good Luck!!