Three steps forward, two steps back – but still walking onwards
IWDA supports the face of courage: Kup Women for Peace
Pacific Programs Manager (PNG), Eleanor Jackson writes about the Kup Women for Peace and their work.
“The Papua New Guinea of today is a country of great change and promise. Yet, as PNG’s Big Men make deals on their Blackberrys, and yesterday’s copra plantation workers train to be tomorrow’s heavy machine operators, the vast majority of Papua New Guinean women still find themselves not only responsible for primary food production, the provision of water and fuel, and the delivery of child and familial care, but also subject to widespread physical, sexual and emotional violence.
Against this backdrop, Mary Kini, Agnes Sil and Angela Apa of Kup Women for Peace (KWP) stand as passionate activists and development workers in PNG committed to bringing safety and security to their communities…”
Walking Amongst Sharp Knives: The Unsung Courage of Karen Women Village Chiefs in Conflict Areas of Eastern Burma
“Our amazing partners at KWO have released a groundbreaking new report this month called ‘Walking Amongst Sharp Knives: The unsung courage of Karen women village chiefs in conflict areas of Eastern Burma’. The report highlights previously unreported abuses taking place against ethnic Karen women in Burma and is a shocking expose of how women village heads are being targeted for systematic abuse by the military junta”.
Renae Davies – IWDA Program Manager – Thai-Burma Border
Sharon Bhagwan Rolls, Coordinator of IWDA partner agency fem’LINKPACIFIC, has been appointed to the position of Gender Liaison Person of the Global Partnership of the Prevention of Armed Conflict’s (GPPAC)
Read the Rest…
‘I was up in Goroka in Papua New Guinea last month (June), working with the wonderful Naomi Yupae and others to look at where Eastern Highlands Family Voice wants to head in the next few years. The organisation is doing great work to address violence, justice issues and resolve conflict – you can read more about it in their latest newsletter’. Deb Chapman, Gender Adviser, Melanesia
As Fiji’s initial 30-day Emergency Decree extends into its second 30-day period, International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) offers our solidarity and support to our partner agencies and to all women
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An article written by IWDA consultants on the Community Strengthening and Gender Mainstreaming in Integrated Mine Action (CSGMIMA) Project in Cambodia has recently been published in The Journal of ERW and Mine Action, which highlights a pilot project aimed at ‘Increasing Female Voices in Mine-Action Planning and Prioritisation’.
UN Security Council Resolution 1325 was passed unanimously on 31 October 2000. Resolution (S/RES/1325) was the first resolution ever passed by the Security Council that specifically addressed the impact of war on women, and women’s contributions to conflict resolution and sustainable peace.
IWDA intern Jasmine Kim Westendorf has drafted a paper on
UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security:
Implications, Implementation, and Future Directions for Australia
Executive Summary
What makes 1325 unique is not only that it (finally) addresses women, war and security, or that its scope is expansive and its implications radical; what makes 1325 unique is that it is both the product of and the armature for a massive mobilization of women’s political energies.
IWDA partner in the Solomon Islands, One Television, ran the first 30-minute episode of the STOP Domestic Violence Program early in February 2009. IWDA has supported this project through Australian Ethical Investments, in response to a request from Dorothy Wickham, the head of One Television.
She has engaged all of the women’s groups in Honiara as a reference group and launched not the 3 minute segments we were originally expecting, but a full-scale program!
