WOMEN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS IN KENYA TAKE ACTION ON THE FEUDING COALITION GOVT.

The G10, is a strong national women’s movement in Kenya that is driven by the vision of a society where women wield political power. its mission seeks to connect women voices and actions to leverage an expanded and redefined political space is frustrated by the feuds, turns and twists of the coalition govt and particularly the lack of political leadership by the President and the Prime Minister.

In order to save their beloved country from the impending paralysis and the G10 has mobilised Kenyan women to taken action by 1. Delivering for signature, performance contracts to the President and Prime minister outlining women’s expectations as a result of this absence of political leadership.

And 2

(This is no laughing matter) I quote

ii) “Indeed extra-ordinary situations call extra-ordinary measures and the G10 calls upon the women of Kenya to go on a sex boycott protesting the poor and woolly leadership and to also demand that the two principals take control and lead this country to its desired destiny-. Such sex boycott to take place with effect from today and to continue for the next seven days. “


The Sex boycott has generated a lot of comments from the Kenyan public and beyond. Some people see it as women using sex to blackmail men into action, while others think that as far as women’s human rights are concerned, the private is political so the call for action is not only appropriate, it should even be extended beyond seven days. What do you think?

Roselynn Musa

Women's Funding Network: 2009 Annual Conference

Arrived in Atlanta yesterday for the Women's Funding Network's annual conference on the theme "Investing in Women: Worldwide Return". Participated in 2 pre-conference activities today - Women Raising Millions Capacity Building Training which had Helen Hunt, one of the lead donors to the campaign present. The training event was unique because it was an opportunity to interact with donors who had given US$1 million or over. Some of what stuck with me from this training event included:

Helen Hunt's comment that donors are actually grateful to women's funds for enabling them to give these significant gifts.

Donors want to be involved in the work and not just provide the cheques.

Bringing donors together is really empowering (for donors).

The second event was a meet and greet for new attendees to WFN's annual conference.

Will keep you posted.

Love from Atlanta,

Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Programme Officer
Fundraising & Communications

Donation to Nana Yaa Memorial Trust for Good Quality Reproductive Health

Thanks to a generous donation from Procter and Gamble the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) will be providing selected AWDF grantees with personal care products.

On Thursday, the 15th of April 2009, AWDF made the first donation of 80 boxes of Always Sanitary pads to the Nana Yaa Memorial Trust for Good Quality Reproductive Health based in Ogboja, Accra. The very first beneficiaries from the trust were female students at the Ogbojo Presbyterian Secondary School.

Here are a few pictures from the donation:


(Founder of Nana Yaa Memorial Trust, Mrs Darkwah and AWDF Staff)


(Beneficiaries from the Ogbojo Presbyterian School and CEO of Nana Yaa Memorial Trust, Lt Col (Rtd) O'Kwaning)


(Students from the Ogbojo Presbyterian Secondary School)

Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
Programme Officer
Fundraising & Communications

IT’S ALL ABOUT YOUNG AND OLD

IT’S ALL ABOUT YOUNG AND OLD

Privileged to attend AFF, AWID, and AWLI that happned back to back in the last quarter of last year, and being the die hard apostle of inclusion that I am, I could not help but note a somewhat disturbing trend in our programmes, discourses and presentations in these esteemed gatherings which to me shape and chart the directions taken by women’s movement both regionally and globally.

It is commendable that after feminists have shouted themselves hoarse on the matter, the movement is now accommodating young women. (We shall leave the debate on the cut off age for qualification as ‘young’ or ‘old’ for another day and another blog.) Anyway, the crux of the matter I am tabling (interneting ?) before you is that including young women seem to have happened at the opportunity cost of excluding the ‘not so young women. Yes, there are some of us who see ourselves as in between young and old by whatever yardstick of measurement young and old age are defined. For convenience and for the purpose of this protest I shall borrow the tail end of youngish and oldish and refer to us as the ‘Ish, Ish’, or the NTBC (Not There, But Close).

Anyway, the Ish Ish group are now complaining that Feminism has taken a new turn to include only the young and the old. Is this true? If yes, what are the implications, if no, why not. I look forward to your responses.

Roselynn

Playing with Social Media: Twitter, Facebook, Blogging

Facebook, Twitter, Blogging…the world of social media has grown exponentially in what appears to be a really short period of time? How does one keep up? How do you decide if it is an appropriate use of your time?

I have very recently started playing on twitter in a quest to figure it out. After all as a Communications professional I need to keep up to date with new media and today I discovered that @ in twitter enables you to respond to other people’s tweets. I only did @ to someone because I saw they had referred to me in that way and then I clicked on @ [my username on twitter] and realised I had loads of responses to previous updates I had given on twitter. The other rationale to at least play with social media is to keep up to date with new language. I have been seeing comments on FB (Facebook) which started with @ and now I know @ means reply to… I think I am beginning to understand why some people say they are addicted to twitter

By the way to follow AWDF on twitter visit http://twitter.com/awdf01

Are you on twitter? What value has it added to your organisation, life or business?

Nana Sekyiamah
Programme Officer
Fundraising & Communications

Donor visit from the African Capacity Building Foundation(ACBF)

Yesterday AWDF hosted a visit from ACBF which included the Executive Secretary of ACBF, Dr Edwin Forlemu and Programme Officer Leah Chatta-Chipepa. ACBF is a major donor to AWDF's Capacity Building Unit which supports AWDF grantees through a variety of strategies including grant-making for capacity building, technical assistance, thematic convenings and skills building workshops.

Here are a few pictures from the visit:








Nana Sekyiamah
Programme Officer
Fundraising & Communications

Gender Inequality in Employment

The United Nations has formulated seven priorities to realise MDG 3. These are;

1. Strengthen opportunities for post primary education for girls
2. Guarantee sexual reproductive Health and Rights
3. Invest in infrastructure to reduce women and girls time burden
4. Guarantee women’s and girls property inheritance and rights
5. Eliminate gender inequality in employment
6. Increase women’s share of seats in national parliament and local Government
7. Combat violence against girls and women.


I came across this information when I recently visited the MDG 3 website.

The priority that I want to comment on is priority number five, “eliminate gender inequality in employment.”

What does gender equality in employment mean to you? To me it simply means recognizing the unique needs of working class men and women and formulating organisational policies and procedures that ensures that no one group is disadvantaged as a result of their gender.

Any one who has experienced gender inequality in employment will agree with me that it is very depressing to the extent that it can affect your self esteem and self confidence.

In Ghana, based on personal experience and interactions with other professional women, I believe that the workplace policies that make women feel marginalized usually centers around remuneration, maternity issues and care giving.

On the issue of remuneration, women with the same skills and competencies as their male counterparts continue to earn less.

Some employers to date still refuse to grant their female staff paid maternity leave. I even know of some highly reputable organizations in Ghana that refuse to grant paid maternity leave to certain categories of their female staff. I experienced this personally years ago whilst working for another organization. I recall that out of frustration I sent a letter to the “Mirror Lawyer” a columnist in the Weekend Mirror newspaper in Ghana. I felt that such a policy that targeted young women like me who wanted a family and a career was unjustified. I wanted to know whether my employer’s action of not granting me paid maternity could be supported by law. The response I received from the mirror lawyer was that legally there was nothing I could do. His advice was that, I consider working for a more gender sensitive firm. Thankfully I am now working at AWDF where policies of this nature do not exist.

Getting maternity leave with or without pay does not end the issue; too often once you resume from maternity leave, your employers may start looking at you differently. You get subtle and sometimes direct messages suggesting that they believe your commitment level has suddenly reduced. I once missed a promotion at a former workplace because I was on maternity leave and the powers that be thought I would not be up to the task upon resumption of work.

Women are the primary care givers, and this is another issue that affects them at the work place. This is especially true when it comes to caring for young children, woe betides you if you have a child who gets sick regularly such that you need to take time off to care for him or her; that can cause you your promotion. A close friend of mine had to resign from her job because of her employers persistent complaints about her taking time off to care for her children.

Is it too much to expect that when a woman resumes from maternity leave her work load be reduced to enable her to leave the office earlier than the rest of the staff? The labour law in most countries actually makes it mandatory for nursing mothers to close earlier so they can care for their babies. It is surprising why this is not practiced in all countries.

In a recent casual conversation with a Director of an organisation on why there were no women Directors in the organisation, his immediate response was that “domestication” had made it difficult for most women to put in the extra hours and commitment required for such positions. I was surprised by the response because actually most women like me, still want the work life balance and know we can make it work if given the opportunity. I certainly do not wish to spend all my time in the office but unfortunately because most of the leadership positions have been, and still continue to be occupied largely by men, the impression has been created that to get to the top women need to choose between their work and families.

Another issue on gender inequality I have come across bothers on payment of medical bills for staff. Believe it or not, some organizations have policies to the effect that, pregnancy is “self induced”, hence antenatal expenses are not included in the medical cover they give to staff. Imagine that! Yet these same organisations claim they are socially responsible. To all these organisations, I say “charity begins at home” so your social responsibilities ought to start with your staff. I have been encouraging my friends who work in organisations with such outdated and retrogressive policies to advocate for change because such policies are discriminatory.

Will organizations take issues of gender inequality at the workplace as seriously as most of them have taken Corporate Social Responsibility? Or countries have to enact laws to force them to do so? What do you think will compel organisations to set up policies that will ensure that women have equal opportunities in employment? What is your own experience?

Gertrude Bibi Annoh-Quarshie
Finance Manager

Monitoring & Evaluation Visits in Ghana: Pictures from Ancilla Women's Centre

Currently AWDF is carrying out an extensive monitoring & evaluation visit with grantees in Ghana and last Friday I joined the Grants Manager on one of these visits. Here are some pictures from the Ancilla Women's Group which was founded by Catholic Sisters and recieved a grant of US$2,000 in 2006 for Economic Empowerment activities:




(Participants making tie & dye)


(handiwork of participants)


(A selection of clothing made by beneficiaries of the centre)


(Beneficiaries learning catering)

Nana Sekyiamah
Programme Officer