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Dear Friends,
Welcome to the 20th issue of "Worlds of Experience", dedicated to the theme
"Youth and Women Empowerment".
Despite the achievements brought about by the feminist movement, worldwide,
women continue to suffer from various forms of inequality, discrimination and
violence. And although long-standing experience has shown that women play a
crucial role in promoting development and peace, still much needs to be done to
empower women, safeguard their rights, eradicate any form of gender-based
violence, and promote gender equality across the board.
Volunteer's Voices presents the experiences of young women who participated in
an ICYE three-month EVS exchange project that aimed at facilitating the
exchange of experience and learning from good practice amongst grassroots
women organisations. The testimonials of these volunteers hold out a promise
to women across the globe: an English volunteer working in a short stay home
in India tells us how socialising with Indian women helped to learn about each
others experiences of being women, daughters, mothers, wives and workers;
conversely an Indian volunteer working in England realised that patriarchy rules
in both UK and India, although due to cultural differences and the progress
made, there seems to be a difference in the two countries in the degree of
quality of life for women. While an Ecuadorian volunteer working in a Women
Cultural Centre in Belgium experienced how important women empowerment is,
especially for the illegal migrant women that are most vulnerable, a Spanish
volunteer in the Dominican Republic learned how a women radio station can be
effective in promoting human and women Rights. This section ends with
accounts on the work of "Charity Centre for Refugees" providing teaching
courses and events for women refugees and asylum seekers in Moldova, the
Swiss organisation "Nosotras" that helps migrant Latin American women, and
the Mexican organisation "Ayuda y Solidaridad" providing young girls at risk with
more than just food, clothing and a roof: love, friendship and security.
As additional contribution to the theme, you will find a report on the EU funded
ICYE EU- Latin America and the Caribbean Training Seminar on the "Active role
of women in Society", which was held in Quito, Ecuador - 12-18 July, 2009, as
well as a series of references and links to the UN and European Commission's
women specialised agencies and policies.
News from Int'l Organisations feature, among others: the UNESCO World Report
"Investing in Cultural Diversity and Intercultural Dialogue"; the latest European
Commission "EU Youth Report"; and the Children and young people "Unite for
Climate" that developed a space to enable young people and experts to
collaborate on issues related to climate change using open-source technology.
News from NGOs reports on: E-Civicus special issue on International Volunteer
Day (5 December 2009); PlanetCall.org a website that aims to encourage 1
million youth to sign a declaration that calls for an ambitious new climate treaty;
and the Facilitator Guide for Gender Training published by Gendernet.
ICYE Programme News, amongst others, feature: the 60th Anniversary
celebration of ICYE Austria; a brief report on a series of EU funded staff
exchanges between ICYE and partner organisations in Europe and Asia; the 6th
UNESCO Youth Forum; the VOSESA / ICYE Baseline Survey on Impact
Assessment of long-term volunteering; the ICYE Sweden "Burst My Bubble"
campaign presented at the recent European Development Days; and last but not
least the Volunteer Week organised by the Cape Town based Volunteer Centre,
South Africa.
In the hope that you'll find the reading interesting and enjoyable, we would like
to encourage readers to send us their articles and pictures for the next issue of
"Worlds of Experience", which will be dedicated to "Youth and the disabled" and
will be published at the end of February 2010. Please send your contributions to
icye@icye.org , before 31 January 2010.
Warmest Wishes!
ICYE International Office
This and previous issues of "Worlds of Experience" can be viewed and downloaded as a
PDF
file.
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