A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to produce social change by helping marginalized communities to become advocates for social justice and claim their rights

Fellow Blogs: Woman With Uterine Prolapse cast out in Nepal...

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AdvocacyNet
Fellow Update
July 24, 2008
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Thirty-four Peace Fellows are volunteering this summer in 21 countries or territories with community-based partners of The Advocacy Project (AP). AP issues a weekly digest of their blogs.
 
Highlights:
 
Woman With Uterine Prolapse Cast Out in Nepal
Difficult, Dangerous Commute for Palestinian Laborers
Mixed Feelings at Srebrenica Memorial in Bosnia
Beauty Amid Waste in Delhi
Baskets Used as "Ambulance" in Rural Nepal
Blogging With Kenya's Street Children
Roma Confront "Separate but Equal" in Croatia
Fighting Back With Bingo in the West Bank
Nepali Mom Gives Birth After Eight Days Without Food
School Expenses Frustrate Parents in Peru
 
Excerpts:
 
Woman With Uterine Prolapse Cast Out in Nepal
Nicole Farkouh (UC Berkeley) is advocating for women's rights with the Uterine Prolapse Alliance in Nepal.
"Compounding the situation, her in-laws, who substitute for her own parents after marriage according to traditional Nepali custom, are very unhappy about her inability to work and are encouraging her husband to take a new wife. The peak of her difficulties occurred just a month before when, after being beaten, she was cast out of the house and told she could not return. She explains that she has been wandering around for the last month, staying with friends and relatives and trying to raise money from them as well as various women's NGOs so she can pay for treatment.... I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to Parvati when I left that afternoon, perhaps that is why her sunken eyes continue to haunt me."
 
Difficult, Dangerous Commute for Palestinian Laborers
Willow Heske (Columbia University) is working with the Democracy and Workers' Rights Center (DWRC) in Ramallah, Palestine.
"The four illegally employed construction workers described their daily trip to work: at 4 a.m. they arrive at a discreet place close to the Israeli border to meet the smuggler who takes them across the line to Israel. They pay the smuggler 50 NIS, a heavy price when they expect to make anywhere from 150 to 300 NIS that day. The smuggler has a van and they must wait until at least 20 workers show up for the trip, the van doesn't fit 20 workers, it only fits 10, but they pile in, one on top of the other. There are different smugglers every day, they tell us. Most of the smugglers are Israeli settlers who are routinely waved through the checkpoints due to their special license plates."
 
Mixed Feelings at Srebrenica Memorial in Bosnia
Janet Rabin (Georgetown University) is working with the Women in Black Network-Serbia (WiB) in Belgrade, Serbia.
"Friday, July 11th was the day I had been anticipating and dreading since I found out I would be spending this summer in the Balkans: the anniversary of the genocide at Srebrenica thirteen years ago. I knew how important it would be to see the memorial service, and how much it would mean to be with the Women in Black there. But I also knew that this was an experience nothing in my life had prepared me for: as multiple survivors of war and trauma have told me, it is a blessing not to be able to truly comprehend what they went through."
 
Beauty Amid Waste in Delhi
Mackenzie Berg (University of Denver) is working with informal waste recyclers at the Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group in Dehli, India.
"The waste is collected on their various routes, and brought back to Seemapuri, where the segregation is done literally on everyone's doorstep. Colorful, reeking piles of paper, plastic, rubber, organic waste and more, surround the entrances to people's homes almost as if a giant storm of garbage had blown these dirty snowdrifts to rest against their outer walls. The women's citrus colored saris and the impish, laughing children running about brighten the otherwise dingy neighborhood which seems to sag in haphazard assembly, threatening to cave in on itself in places."
 
Baskets Used as "Ambulance" in Rural Nepal
Raka Banerjee (UC San Diego) is advocating for human rights and good governance with the Nepal Social Development and People's Empowerment Center (NESPEC) in Gaighat, Nepal.
"If they have any medical needs, they will make do with what they have, a deep wound will be tied with some herbs for example, and sometimes it gets better and sometimes it gets worse. If there is a very serious illness, perhaps if a woman is pregnant and very sick, the same woven basket which they use to transport their produce is used as a form of ambulance. The ill person will be carried on the backs of others for the full day long trek to reach Gaighat, where there is a hospital (and from some places, the trip can take up to three or four days). Often, though, women will give birth alone, or surrounded only by neighbors and friends without any medical knowledge. Not surprisingly, maternal and infant mortality is high."
 
Blogging With Kenya's Street Children
Kristina Rosinsky (University of Maryland) is teaching photography to street children with the Undugu Society of Kenya.
"The workshops began with an introduction to blogging and photography, going over the basics of what makes a good blog and photo. Then we went out to take photos as a group and uploaded them from the camera to the computer and put them on a flash drive. Meanwhile, the students were writing, editing and sharing their first blogs on their own and in class. Once the pictures and first blogs were complete, we ventured to the Internet cafe to type the blogs, create email accounts, blogging accounts and Flickr accounts. Once the accounts were created, they posted their material online on their own pages."
 
Roma Confront "Separate but Equal" in Croatia
Colby Pacheco (UC San Diego) is working on Romani rights with the Dzeno Association in Prague, the Czech Republic.
"But why was the Croatian outcome different? The answer is in the details of the case but suffice to say, the Croatian state was better able to prove that it was not openly discriminating. The Croatian defense hinged on the common claim of such policies; Roma do not possess the necessary language skills to enroll in normal classes. And with that, the Court ruled in favor of the state and Croatia is now allowed to enact this 'separate but equal' policy."
 
Fighting Back With Bingo in the West Bank
Rianne Van Doeveren (Leiden University) is working with the Alternative Information Center in Palestine.
"In the meantime the local Fakouz festival was going on a few hundred meters away from the armed settlers who were taking over the hilltop. At this festival Palestinians and internationals gathered to give a response to the settlers' presence and stated intentions. The strategy followed was clear from the start when settlers first arrived at the scene at Nakba Day, May 15: a creative non-violent, non-confrontational and non-political response aimed to integrate the area into the community and to show that the presence of settlers is not accepted. So far this strategy had been successful and applied to numerous events by playing bingo, playing animal games, organizing a tour in the area and painting the old structures over and over again in response to racist graffiti."

Nepali Mom Gives Birth After Eight Days Without Food
Libby Abbott (Brown University) is advocating for women's rights with the Uterine Prolapse Alliance in Nepal.
"Just a month or two after giving birth to her first child at the age of 19, Sabitri Kohar became pregnant with a second child. She describes the second delivery as being much like the first one: both were relatively uncomplicated labors played out on the packed dirt floor of her thatch house. At the end of both deliveries, the mid-wife attending her birth pushed and prodded Sabitri's stomach in an effort to release the placenta. When describing her first two deliveries, Sabitri almost forgets to mention one crucial difference in her experiences. 'That second time, I had not eaten for eight days before I gave birth. We had no food in the home, so I did not eat.'"
 
School Expenses Frustrate Parents in Peru
Jennifer Tucker (UC Berkeley) is working to ensure quality education for children with Supporting Kids in Peru (SKIP) in El Porvenir, Peru.
"The goal was simple: find out what they think of SKIP. It was the first time the organization has formally sought to include the voices of the families with which it works in the planning process... Parents told of their frustration when they can't help with their children's school work because they didn't finish primary school; of not being able to afford the matriculation, uniform and school supply costs and having the tell their child 'maybe you can go back to school next year;' of their children being marginalized by teachers who get upset when families can't afford the required (and sometime ridiculous) list of school supplies; and of the general weariness of struggling everyday but never having enough."