Women’s Indaba success will mean similar gatherings across Africa, USA; One in five women is childless by age of 45; Internet porn is leading children on an ‘unstoppable march into a moral wasteland’; The end of childhood: 12; Bereaved Parent Support Day
Women’s Indaba success
Women’s Indaba success will mean similar gatherings across Africa, USA
The first three-day Indaba process specifically designed for women to discuss the issue of violence has been hailed a success by participants.
Women from both North America and Africa said they were so impressed with the format, they plan to replicate the process in the future. Eleven women travelled to Manhattan, New York, from across Africa’s Great Lakes region and America to spend March 1-3 in deep conversation across difference.
Speaking after the gathering, participants made clear it had been a significant experience for everyone. Burundi representative Mathilda Nkwirikiye said: “It is like when your neighbour lets you look through a window into his house. You learn a lot of things about him. So I have learned a lot of things about these people because they were willing to share their feelings about their experiences and their community’s experiences.”
She added that she had been surprised by how easily women who met as strangers talked about such a difficult topic—violence against women and girls. She also praised the Indaba model saying: “We generally go to conferences where facilitators have planned the lines of the conversation, but we built [the agenda] ourselves as a group; we said what we wanted to talk about and how we wanted to go through the conversation.”
Diane Eynon is the Chairperson of the Anglican Women’s Empowerment (AWE) group that facilitated the event which was hosted at the Episcopal Church’s head office. She said, “We believe this experience will allow us to take our work with young girls and women around the Anglican Communion to a higher and more effective level.
“Indaba potentially provides us with a process and framework to continue what we have been doing and will continue to do in the future: bringing girls and women from around the world together…to learn, understand, collaborate, inspire, and support each other in our work for women’s empowerment, wherever that may be.”
Kim Robey, retired Executive Director of AWE agreed, “It exceeded our expectations…Our goal was to deepen relationships and to start the conversation about how we might work together in the future and that happened.”
Both said they were hopeful that a next step would be similar gatherings, in the US and also in Africa, with girls from America taking part in an Indaba conversation with girls from different countries in Africa.
Lucie Nzarambal, is Vice Chairperson of the Mothers’ Union in Rwanda and a District Councillor representing women. She agreed the experience had been very good, but added there had been challenging moments in the conversations: “When we were talking and hearing about stories [of violence against women and girls] people were sad, they were crying. We felt bad to hear that women like us had been raped, been violated. Those were difficult times.”
She explained that, thanks to the gathering, she would be going back with new tools to address violence in Rwanda, “This is the first time I’ve heard about ‘safe spaces’ where a woman can come and talk and break silence about the violence [she has experienced]. That’s something I will take back to my country; as is the idea of gathering two or three women together in small groups, giving them the opportunity to break the silence [about abuse]. Women are not able to talk about it in large gatherings.”
The youngest participant, Faith Meitiaki from Kenya, said she had been surprised to discover that “women in the developed world” struggled with life too.
“They have an education, they are economically empowered, so I have never thought about the challenging part of their lives. I realised that every woman has challenges, and are also fighting sexual abuse and domestic violence. For me that was an eye opener: that, as long as you’re a woman, you will always face violence. That was a common denominator between the women from Africa and America.”
The participants were:
• The Revd Maylin Biggadike (USA)
• Carey Chirico (USA)
• Diane Eynon (USA)
• Zilpa Kisonzelas (Tanzania)
• Faith Meitiaki (Kenya)
• Claudaline Muhindo (DR Congo)
• Mathilda Nkwirikiye (Burundi)
• Lucie Nzarambal (Rwanda)
• Sue Ramar (USA)
• Kim Robey (USA)
• Laura Russell (USA)
The two facilitators were:
• Janet Marshall (Canada)
• Alice Mogwe (Botswana)
Notes
• Anglican Women’s Empowerment (AWE) is a non-profit with a mission of social change through women’s leadership. http://anglicanwomensempowerment.org/
• Continuing Indaba was designed as a biblically-based and mission-focused project to develop and intensify relationships within the Anglican Communion by drawing on cultural models of consensus building for mutual creative action http://www.aco.org/ministry/continuingindaba/index.cfm and http://continuingindaba.com/
One in five women is childless by age of 45
by Tim Ross, Telegraph – One in five women is childless by the time they reach their mid-forties, according to new figures showing that fertility rates have fallen to a 44-year low.
At the same time, the number of women over the age of 40 having children has almost doubled in the last 10 years as women delay motherhood for longer.
Among younger mothers, marriage is increasingly being sidelined, with almost three-times as many women in their early 20s giving birth while single or cohabiting than as part of a married couple.
Analysts said the figures suggested that more women were delaying starting a family because they were focused on their careers, and took longer to find the right man. Rising property prices may also have made it harder for couples to settle down and begin family life.
The figures from the Office for National Statistics provided a detailed picture of the changing patterns of parenthood in England and Wales over the past five decades.
They showed that 20% of women aged 45 in 2009 had no children, the highest rate of childlessness for the mid-forties age group since 1965, when the male population had been hit by World War II.
Internet porn is leading children on an ‘unstoppable march into a moral wasteland’
By Daniel Martin, Mailonline
• Lib Dem peer warns that young women and girls are the ‘main casualties’ of an ‘epidemic’ of violent material found online
• NSPCC found more than 5,000 under-18s have been questioned by the police over sex offences over the past three years
Former children’s TV presenter Floella Benjamin has warned of an ‘epidemic’ of violent online porn, which is leading youngsters on a ‘seemingly unstoppable march into a moral wasteland’.
Baroness Benjamin – who sits as a Lib Dem peer in the Lords – said girls were becoming increasingly sexualised while more and more boys were treating them as little more than ‘sexual objects’.
In an impassioned speech to mark today’s International Women’s Day, she said boys were pressurising girls into degrading behaviour.
‘I believe we have opened a Pandora’s box and I have no answer as to how we can reverse the trend of the sexual objectification of women and how to protect our children against its influence,’ she said.
The former Play School and Play Away presenter said violent pornography was ‘only a mouse click away’ and was a ‘pan-global epidemic’.
Too many children were growing up believing happiness could be gained purely by using sex as a commodity, she warned.
More at –
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2289738/Internet-porn-leading-children-unstoppable-march-moral-wasteland-warns-ex-Playschool-presenter-Floella-Benjamin.html
The end of childhood: 12
Childhood is becoming ever shorter and ending at the tender age of 12, a survey by Netmums has found.
According to the poll of over 1,000 parents by the website, over 70% said their child was no longer childlike by the age of 12.
Almost all of the parents felt that children today were under far greater pressure and grow up faster than previous generations.
The change is blamed on a toxic mix of peer pressure, celebrity culture and the media.
Just under half the parents of daughters (45%) said their child was under immense strain to be thin. They also noted that their daughters were worried about how popular they are and how many Facebook friends they have.
Over a quarter felt their daughters were being pressured into an interest in sex and boyfriends too soon.
Boys are also under pressure, the survey found, to be “macho before they were ready” and believe “appearance was the most important thing about someone”.
A third of parents think exposure to the internet has played a role in their children growing up too fast, while others admitted concern about celebrity culture and the obsession with sexualised and body conscious stars.
Over half of parents (54%) were angry that fashion retailers provided clothes aimed at teenage girls that “can be too sexual, such as overtly short skirts or crop tops”.
Tweens today are also indulging in different hobbies from their parents’ generation, the survey found.
Most of the parents (83%) said they were still childlike at the age of 12 and that their favourite past-time was playing outdoors with friends. This compares with the top past-time of today’s tweens of playing alone on an iPad or tablet.
Only 23% of children spend time reading compared to 41% of their parents when they were the same age. While 39% of parents said they listened to music, this compared to only 17% of the children.
Netmums co-founder Siobhan Freegard says: “The pace of modern life is so fast that it is even snatching away the precious years of childhood. A toxic combination of marketing, media and peer pressure means children no longer want to be seen as children, even when we as parents know they still are.
“It’s shocking our study shows childhood ends by 12 years old. Children need time to grow and emotionally mature in order to cope with what life throws at them.
“There needs to be a radical rethink in society to revalue childhood and protect it as a precious time – not time to put pressure on children to grow up far too fast.”
Bereaved Parent Support Day
Offered by Care for the Family, the Support Day offers understanding, encouragement and support to any parent who has suffered the death of a son or daughter in any circumstance and at any age.
As well as having times to share informally over refreshments and lunch, delegates will have opportunities to: • Meet and share with other parents who have suffered the death of a child • Discover practical ways to work through the pain of bereavement and loss • Receive comfort, hope and help for the journey ahead
The day will be led by Bereaved Parent Support Co–ordinators Kath and Mike Coulson and their team. They lost their eldest son Philip, then aged seven, in 1994, and know how difficult life can be following bereavement.
Venue: Orangefield Presbyterian Church on 27 Apr 2013
Cost: £25.00
Registration at 9.00 am, day finishes at 5.00 pm
Booking at:
http://www.careforthefamily.org.uk/events/bookplace.asp?LocationId=1366&EventID=120