******
AdvocacyNet
Fellow Update

September 3, 2008

******

 

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:

 

 

Excerpts:

Displaced and Disabled in Uganda

Annelieke van de Wiel (University of Amsterdam) is working with Survivor Corps and the Gulu Disabled Persons Union in the Gulu district of northern Uganda.

"In the camps, if you're deaf, you're very unlikely to know how to write your own name. Actually, as you probably never learned sign language, you most likely don't even know that you have a name. If you're blind, you might not even have a cane to find your way around. Fetching water and fire wood becomes a huge burden and you largely depend on others. And what if you are blind and deaf, how do you communicate your needs to anyone to begin with?"

 

Libby Abbott (Brown University) is advocating for women's rights with the Uterine Prolapse Alliance in Nepal.

"'Your husband is supposed to be looked upon as God,' Bimala Ghimire says, explaining the way she was raised in a strict hierarchy of gender roles in her upper-caste Brahmin community. 'I used to think that way,' she adds, 'because I didn't know any better. But now I look at my husband as an equal. And he also sees me as an equal.'"

 

Chi Vu (Columbia University) is working alongside survivors of landmine injuries with Landmine Survivors' Network-Vietnam in the Quang Binh province of Vietnam.

"I could give you lots of statistics, but the fact of the matter is, there are just too many people living with the legacy of wartime ordnance in Vietnam, and in SE Asia in general. People still encounter unexploded ordnance on a daily basis here in Quang Binh province. Just last week, a group working on clearing land for an eco-trail in the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park dug up six cluster bombs. Luckily, none of the bombs exploded, but the workers may not be so lucky next time."

 

Lucas Wolf (Universidad del Salvador) is working with Landmine Survivors Network-Ethiopia in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

"Indeed, posters of Dereje Getaneh, a landmine survivor performing a high tae kwon do kick with the slogan: 'Given the opportunity, we will be successful!' decorate various offices here. Dereje lost both his hands when he picked up an unexploded ordinance (UXO) out of a nearby creek bed when he was 10 years old. Thus, sports offer an activity that contains elements of health and rehabilitation first and foremost, but also a strong dose of social empowerment and to some extent, economic opportunities." 

 

Nicole Farkouh (UC Berkeley) is advocating for women's rights with the Uterine Prolapse Alliance in Nepal.

"Despite my assumption that all such 'mobile hysterectomy camps' were held in tents in open fields and the like, this camp was to be held at the district hospital... However, they are still considered 'camps' because specialized doctors (gynecologists and anesthesiologists) and equipment still have to be brought in. The fact that there are only 64 gynecologists in the entire country of Nepal, and an even fewer number of anesthesiologists illustrates this point, and belies much larger issues."

 

Juliet Hutchings (American University) is working to raise awareness of the plight of pygmies with the World Peasants and Indigenous Organization in Central Africa.

"As we drove, I had my video camera out and was shooting the landscape and scenery along the way. I was very keen to get footage of the vendors at our various food stops, and was excited the first time we pulled into a village and I saw sticks of goat meat coming prancing into my view finder. However, my delight was not shared by those folks outside of the bus... Ahh, yes, the Muzungu with the video camera. I could only imagine that they felt like I saw them simply as spectacle, no different than the animals I would most certainly shoot on my upcoming safari."

Hannah Wright (Bristol University) is working with the Women's Affairs Technical Committee in Ramallah, Palestine.

"Feminists from the 'Global South' have often urged Western feminists not to judge other societies according to our own Western values or to assume that our perspectives are somehow universal or 'correct.' This is an important point, especially when Western feminists take it upon themselves to speak on behalf of 'Third World women' as though the latter were not capable of formulating their own opinions and priorities."

Laws Insult Roma Community in Europe

Colby Pacheco (UC San Diego) is working on Romani rights with the Dzeno Association in Prague, the Czech Republic.

"I am immediately skeptical of laws that are made to protect someone for their own good. It's as if the underlying assumption is that clearly this minority is unfit to raise children, we must look after them since we (the state) can provide better care than these uneducated beggars. God forbid a government minister ever had to walk a mile in a 35-year-old woman's shoes. They might just realize how complex of an issue integration and access to basic services really is for Romani people."

Antigona Kukaj (Columbia University) is working alongside conflict survivors with Landmine Survivors Network-Bosnia Herzegovina in Tuzla, Bosnia.

"My work at LSN BiH has shown me what it takes for a person to somehow find courage within themselves after a traumatic event to become a survivor, and then help others live as one too. If the phenomenal artists I met at the Balkana Art Colony can rise above their disability and accomplish reconciliation at some level within their communities, then there is still hope that this whole nation will eventually get there as well."

 

Janet Rabin (Georgetown University) is working with the Women in Black Network-Serbia in Belgrade, Serbia.

"Looking back toward my home, both its flaws and virtues became more salient: I felt grateful that I did not have to worry about people knowing my last name. As someone who in other times and places could have been persecuted for a number of my inherent characteristics, I realized what a privilege it is to be able to forget about those things. However, that makes the presence of things like racism and homophobia in present-day America all the more ludicrous and abhorrent to me. The more I thought about how much progress we have made, the more incensed I was that we still allowed these types of injustices to persist."

Newswire: