#Empowerment
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Faith Communities and Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Rights
Sharifa Abdul-Aziz is the Senior Gender Policy Advisor at Islamic Relief Worldwide. Sharifa attended the Women Deliver conference on behalf of Islamic Relief USA, who is part of the Faith Alliance for Health who organized the panel Sharifa spoke at. She wrote the following reflection Women Deliver is a leading global advocacy platform for women and girls rights, health and wellbeing. Thousands of influencers, policy makers, activists, journalists and young people from a number of countries come together to promote and highlight solutions and focus on how to make Sustainable Development Goals matter to women and girls. The event takes place every three years and has achieved putting maternal,…
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Celebrating Unseen Strength on International Women’s Day
When you think of the word “strong,” who do you think of? A muscular man, lifting weights … fixing a road with heavy machinery … carrying bricks to build a big wall? That’s physical strength, yes. But so often, strength looks like this: It’s Mina Bibi, cleaning a clinic in Pakistan for $10 a month to support her four daughters after losing her husband. And then an earthquake destroys her house, and she has to pick up the pieces for them, all alone. That’s strength. Strength is Naza, surviving World War II and the war in Bosnia, losing her husband, seeing her village burned down, then starting over in a…
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Getting Gaza’s children off to a “Right Start” at school this year with IRUSA and ANERA
Laura McAdams is International Programs Coordinator at Islamic Relief USA. Back-to-school season is approaching and while many parents are preparing themselves for their children’s first day of school, only about a third of all four and five year olds in Gaza will be enrolled in preschool in the fall. The preschools that are available to children in Gaza are overcrowded and expensive: There are only four public, no-fee preschools in all of the West Bank and Gaza. Moreover, the quality of education children receive at these schools is reportedly poor. During school hours children have neither the opportunities or materials to be creative. They don’t even have places to play…
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Tunisia’s Farmers Are Rebuilding Greenhouses and Building Up Biodiversity with Islamic Relief USA
Laura McAdams is an International Programs Coordinator at Islamic Relief USA. Mohamad was the first person I met with on my recent monitoring and evaluation trip to Tunisia. He is the community leader of a cooperative of small-scale farmers in the southern town of Faouar. Mohamad comes from a long generational line of farmers. I followed him on a dry dirt path to a field where rows of greenhouses stood. Through two consecutive years, southern Tunisia has suffered strong storms that destroyed or severely damaged greenhouse structures in the country. Farmers weren’t able to salvage their crops and resume farming activities because they couldn’t find the money they needed to…
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TechGirls Are Tech-Social for Humanitarian Action at Islamic Relief USA
Nada Shawish is communications specialist at Islamic Relief USA. Fatima and Khadija are scrolling through their phones, checking tweets and Facebook statuses during a short break. “I am addicted to social media,” Fatima exclaims, her big eyes growing even bigger. She’s fifteen years old from Lebanon and she tells me that she dreams about working in digital technology someday. The girls are visiting Islamic Relief USA headquarters as part of the job-shadowing aspect of the TechGirls exchange program. TechGirls is a 3-week, international summer exchange program hosted by the U.S. State Department that selects promising girls from the Middle East and North Africa region and empowers them to to pursue…
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South Sudan’s Women Champion Farming for Their Families in Tarkeka with Islamic Relief
Nada Shawish is a communications specialist at Islamic Relief USA and she reports from South Sudan. “Our women are working hard. It is a burden on our women, they are digging and planting and they need support or they will not survive,” said Mary, the South Sudan representative that accompanied us to Tarkeka. She’s originally from the area, and she works closely with the women’s association in Tarkeka to develop livelihoods and improve lives for families. Suddenly, the sky opens up on the red dirt and cool water quickly floods grass and road. I’ve never seen people so happy for rain. It’s true, the heat is exhausting, and Mary joins…
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Positive Community Centers Invigorate Inner City Youth in Addis Ababa
Nada Shawish, Communications Specialist at Islamic Relief USA, reports from Ethiopia. Graduating from higher education is a great accomplishment and should be a milestone for a young person. But like many of my friends in the United States who were not able to get jobs after graduation during the last economic downturn, youth in Ethiopia have had to deal with this reality since they were born. Tawfiq Dandeir is 24 years old and he worked hard to get his education. But like many other students, there were no jobs to be found when he was done. When he got the opportunity to become manager of the Lidita Youth Center in…
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IRUSA Makes Education for Syrian Children a Priority
Enas was nine years old when her and her family fled Syria more than a year ago in January 2014. Their home is now a simple tent in eastern Lebanon in one of the more than four hundred informal settlements that are scattered throughout the country.
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In A Wealthy World, It’s Wrong That So Many Women Live in Poverty
Christina Tobias-Nahi is Director of Public Affairs at Islamic Relief USA. Boston, MA – Oxfam America invited some of their regional “Sisters on the Planet Ambassadors” to participate in the 2015 International Women’s Day Right the Wrong workshop held in and around Harvard University’s Campus on March 6 and 7. This is one of many workshops in a series that was held around the United States. The training and advocacy event was focused on Protecting Resources and Rights in extractive industries in the developing world. More than 50 countries in the world are considered “resource-rich”, meaning they have significant oil, gas or mineral reserves. Yet in many of these countries, a large…
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One TechGirl inspires with a special message to leaders everywhere
Islamic Relief USA’s Nada Shawish writes on a special letter she received from one very special TechGirl who is working hard to become a leader in a male-dominated field. I’ve read so many pieces of writing here at Islamic Relief USA. Some are from the field, some are from donors, some are from staff members, and some are from community leaders. But the ones that mean the most are the ones we receive from the people we support with your donations and volunteered time. One particular piece we received from a high school girl makes me so hopeful for the future of our world. Kenza, from the group TechGirls, believes…
