November, 2009

Climate change is affecting the way of life of Mongolian nomadic families. A new citizen media project is teaching Mongolians how to use internet tools to tell these stories.

We cannot maintain the level of consumption of resources we have today with 6, 7 or 8 billion people. Sooner or later we will have to make the difficult choice between reducing the population or our standard of living.

Even in the most extreme circumstances when survival is at stake, Bangladeshi women stand out for their capacity to unite and together overcome climate change’s effects on their lives.

Sexual violence in armed conflict is increasingly reported with state and non-state individuals. What strategies can help prevent such an affliction?

‘Conversation starters’ answered the questions: “What are some of the best practices in preventing trafficking?” and “How do we protect victims from further abuse and violence?” Below is a brief summary of the thoughts shared at Conversations for a Better World.

Economic and political policies made at international, regional and national levels strongly affect the fight against trafficking. The approach to build a strategy must be holistic.

November 25th is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and through videos, many people and organizations around the world are expressing their need to end the violence as well as the efforts they are undertaking to ensure that women have a safer world to live in.

What connection does finishing the food on your plate in New York, saving the water and the energy here, have to children and women in third world countries? Many.

‘Conversation starters’ answered the question: “Can you share any stories of men and boys mobilizing to stop domestic violence?” Below is a brief summary of the thoughts shared at Conversations for a Better World.

It’s shocking: Between 500,000 to 2 million people, mostly women and children, are trafficked every year according to a UN study on violence against women. What are some of the best practices in preventing trafficking? How do we protect victims from further abuse and violence?

It is a popular saying in Latin America that women always get what they want. For 20 years, fearless women from the Kichwa community, an indigenous group in Ecuador, have been resisting against oil companies’ presence on their lands.

I have dealt with domestic violence and other female issues in my country, Pakistan. There are various trends that perpetuate domestic violence. I have listed some of my conclusions.

Firstly, we simply cannot exclude such a large group of people, if we are serious in our ambitions to turn the tide. Not tapping into the resource of young people is foolish. Secondly, young people will always be the best experts on youth.

Violence against women, above all domestic violence, should be addressed from different perspectives.

Men must be protected from being pressured by traditions and macho culture into committing violence again women or other men.

A teenaged mother in Singapore discusses her decision to see her pregnancy through. The one person who helped her through the experience? Her mother. Watch on!

Art and policy joined forces as the Art Center College of Design launched a campaign to spread awareness.

In this video I talk about Nepal’s high maternal mortality rate. Unless the Nepalese Government and the people decides that maternal mortality is an issues of national importance and priority, the rates will remain high

The young volunteers who are involved in the fight against HIV get nothing in return.

Everything we talk about, maternal mortality, the breaking of promises such as those made at Cairo in 1994, the lack of family planning personnel and commodities, the feminization of AIDS, the ubiquitous nature of gender based violence, all this and more has to do with the basic issue of gender inequality.

The Alzar las Voces (Raise the Voices) project in Nicaragua brings farmers in rural communities the possibility to speak out through video.

Here are links to several documents that offer a snapshot of violence against women from a global perspective as well as prevention guidelines.

Society must change its way of thinking in order to eliminate domestic violence. My experience is that Pakistan has a long way to go in order to fix this problem.

While everyone’s talking about carbon credits and technological solutions to climate change, no one’s talking about the people who are going to be affected most: women.

Diamonds: Stories of Women from the Asia Pacific Network of People Living with HIV, a book and documentary, tells the stories of ten women and one girl who are all HIV-positive.

Activist Ursula Rakova has been leading the way to raise funds to help relocate the residents from the Cataret Islands in Papua New Guinea, where it is estimated that by the year 2015 all of the islands will be completely submerged attributed to climate change.

We want to hear from you. The international community has just finished Violence Against Women Awareness month. It is crucial that the topic stays on the international agenda. This is why we are hosting a dialogue for those affected, interested or working on violence against women issues.

68-year-old Aicha Ech Chenna has just been awarded the world’s largest faith-based prize for entrepreneurship, the Opus Prize. She has formed a social work practice with the sole purpose of helping unwed mothers.

Al Gore speaks about his new book, “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Global Climate Crisis”, and emphasized that family planning and empowering women are among the best ways of fighting climate change. Is he right?

A group of women in India have demonstrated that despite the existing gender inequity and their low economic status, they can become a powerful resource to tackle climate change and reduce the emissions that cause it.

Invisible Women Melting is the title of a play written by a graduate student in the United States that seeks to draw the comparison between the negative effects of climate change felt by African-American and African women.

What is the relationship between the economic meltdown and environmental sustainability? How would the meltdown affect the course of environmental sustainability? How can we effectively manage our environment in the face of the present economic meltdown?

If population, family planning and reproductive health are left out of the climate change adaptation debate, there is probably little hope for many of these failing states.

We must press for more attention to women’s roles in clean energy and ‘green’ economies. Much can be done to move social and economic habits towards sustainability by engaging women as promoters of family health, safety, and prospects for a safe and satisfying world.

Desertification is silently but rapidly spreading around the world and Latin America is not escaping its devastating effects.

And not incidentally, caring about women translates into caring about the planet. The only way to slower population growth – eventually limiting our collective footprint – is to make it possible for women to have only the pregnancies they want.

Women and young people play a crucial role. They have the skills to adapt to climate change, and can be powerful actors e.g. by planting trees, maintaining forests and developing ecological food production and sustainable household energy which are also creating new sustainable jobs.

The disappearance of glaciers in the Bolivian Andes Mountains is causing a concern because the future water shortages will affect the availability of suitable drinking water for a vulnerable migrant population.

Poor women in developing countries and their babies are dying in childbirth because of something as basic as a lack of money and resources. A filmmaker captures one Nigerian woman’s story as she gives birth.

In spite of all odds against them, India’s lower caste women are now organizing and standing up for their rights to maternal healthcare.