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The Power Of Wondering Why.... |
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Susan notes: this is the story of Dr. Janet Rose Wojtalik, powerful advocate for creating the female leaders of the future. I've cut and paste it from her great (and FREE!) e-book The 7 Secrets of Parenting Girls, which you can download here.
 I was born on August 24th, 1953 to Stanley and Agnes. The second of three children, I grew up in a warm, loving, middle class home peppered by typical gender role models: dad was the breadwinner and mom stayed at home, raised the children and took care of the house, the shopping and my father’s paycheck.
Academically, my mom had a high school diploma but dad had to drop out of school in eighth grade to work and help provide for his family. He grew up in the depression era and food on the table at that time was more important that an education for the able-bodied boys in the family.
I have one older sister and one younger brother. We all went to college. That fact in itself had always caused me to wonder why...
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The Forgotten Women Of The Gulag: A Story From Khazakhstan |
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Susan notes: a story of discovery by Joanna Lillis, originally published on Eurasianet (with a slide show/video); special thanks to both Lillis and Eurasianet editor Justin Burke for their kind permission to republish it on AWR.
 The women’s faces gaze down from the walls, young and old, dark and fair, blue-eyed and brown-eyed.
Some look sad, some stoical, some bitter, and some simply confused.
These women, who came from all over the Soviet Union, had one thing in common: they had been incarcerated in Stalin’s gulag although they were not even suspected of committing an offense themselves.
Their crime? Being married to an enemy of the state, for which they
were sent to this prison in Soviet Kazakhstan, ending up in part of the
infamous network of concentration camps which stretched across Siberia,
down onto the Kazakh steppe.
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Hellwafashion: A Helluva' Good Idea ! |
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Posted by Bebhinn Kelly
August 4, 2009
 I studied international marketing and Languages at University and have always had a love of travelling and an interest in the global workplace. I was always a very independent person and always looked to successful women in business such as Anita Roddick ( Body shop founder) and Oprah for inspiration.
Just over a year ago, I left my job as Country Director for a publishing house (a role which involved a lot of travelling) in order to stay in Dubai.
I’ve always had a keen interest in fashion and I guess the closest I’ve come to rubbing shoulders with fashion royalty was at a fashion show in Dublin when I was a teenager in which Naomi Campbell modeled!
Shortly after I left my job I started to work on behalf of up and coming female designers looking to gain entry to the Middle East market. It was while working on their market entry strategies that the idea for www.hellwafashion.com came about.
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Iranian American Writer Becomes A Green Girl |
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Susan notes: this story by magazine and newspaper writer Charlotte Safavi originally appeared in The Washington Post (on July 19, 2009), and in The Huffington Post, for whom Safavi blogs, on July 24. Safavi says: "I rarely identify as Iranian, but suddenly the women in Tehran feel like my sisters."
You can visit her at www.charlottesafavi.com and follow her on Twitter.
 "Mom, don't go. I'm worried."
My son R.J. knows exactly where I am headed -- and he is nervous.
"Honey, there's nothing to worry about," I reply. "People do this all the time in America."
Earlier, I had told him and my American husband that I planned to skip the Alexandria Little League picnic and instead attend a peaceful rally in downtown Washington. The demonstration had been organized in support of the protesters in Iran who were disputing the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
A multicultural woman of Iranian parentage and British birth, I spent a few years of my childhood in Tehran, but attended the British School and identified more with my English peers than with my fellow Iranians. I immigrated to America in 1985 after graduating from Oxford and have been here ever since. Though I look the part (olive skin, dark hair and almond-shaped eyes), I rarely feel Iranian as I go about my daily life as a mother, writer and wife in Northern Virginia.
Today, however, I found myself uncharacteristically weeping over a YouTube video showing various clips of Iranian women protesting on the streets of Tehran. I did not expect to feel such kinship. But I was compelled to support them, even from a world away.
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Freedom - Don't Ever Take It For Granted |
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Posted by Sharon Montiero
June 20, 2009
 My husband got an offer to open an International School in Port
Harcourt Nigeria. Although we surfed the web and spoke to a couple of
people in Port Harcourt, were not prepared for the signs of abject
poverty in Port Harcourt.
The shacks and ship containers that were home
to these people, the broken down cars on the side of the roads, the
long grass that had not been cut. The roads were lonely with pockets of
‘mopo’ (mobile police) who looked very scary. We wondered what had we
signed up for?
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Diane Shares From Experience With Love |
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Posted by Diane Illingworth-Wilcox
June 14, 2009
From Experience With Love, the project which, along with my two
daughters, is my life purpose, has its roots in my teenage years.
 Like many teenagers I felt awkward and out of place. My body was changing, I had suddenly noticed boys, and I was supposed
to be thinking about how I wanted to contribute in the workforce. (Here I am at 13)
I was
also supposed to be “fitting in” with the people and ideas that
surrounded me. I had, and continue to have, a very close knit and
beautiful family, but at the time my parents were very traditional.
Their expectations of me were to be a “nice girl,” finish school and
become a teacher, nurse or be involved in another female-orientated
job. They hoped I would find a well-to-do gentlemen, get married and
start a family. My brothers, on the other hand, were to become
successful so that they could support their own wives and families.
There wasn’t anyone other than my mother, or the characters on
television or in movies, who I could really look to for advice or to be
my role models.
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Achan Grace Finds Hope And a Home With BeadforLife |
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Story & Video by Vicky Collins
 Achan Grace crosses the threshold of the home she built with
her own hands, falls to her knees and wails. Moments later, she
ululates and dances with joy.
It’s a scene that no one, especially Grace herself, would ever have
dreamed possible.
Three years ago, this mother of five begged for work. She feared she
would die from sickness and starvation, leaving her children with
nothing.
Today, she is one of several hundred women who earn an income making
beautiful bead jewelry from recycled magazine paper, and selling it to
eager buyers in North America. Now she makes enough money to feed her
family and send her children to school.
She feels sufficiently wealthy to take in a baby that someone else has
abandoned, even though she already has five children of her own. She has
named the rescued infant “Gift from God.”
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