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In the Philippines local churches become evacuation sites

In the Philippines local churches become evacuation sites
“I prayed that even if everything we had were destroyed, our lives be spared!”

An elderly resident of Barangay Botongan in the town of Estancia in Northern Iloilo only had time to grab her grandchildren and run for cover when the 300 kph winds ripped their house apart.

On November 7, 2013 the strongest typhoon to ever hit land levelled central Philippines in a matter of hours. Over 5,000 lives were lost and nearly 4.5 million residents have been displaced from their homeland. Three hundred million dollars’ worth of damage in agriculture and infrastructure was estimated by the national disaster authorities.

Diakonia responded with support for the immediate provision of food, water and fuel to affected communities. The Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches (CPBC) which has its main office in Jaro, Iloilo reported that no one could reach the remote places of the affected towns because of debris and broken structures. CPBC coordinated with local authorities to utilize heavy equipment to transport food bags to the communities. They also mobilized volunteers from local hospitals and schools.

“There came many storms before, but this was something we have not seen in our lives…”

I visited some of the affected areas in northern Iloilo and Capiz provinces on January 2^nd to the 4^th. Rains continued to pour in the affected towns which have put up thin blankets or plastic sheets on their temporary shelters. A rainy weather is especially difficult for traumatized children as they continue to worry that the rain might suddenly turn into storm surges. Two months after Haiyan hit the country the people are still in shock at the devastation. Many of the affected populations do not own the lands on which their houses were built and therefore may face eviction or rejection of rebuilding plans. Those whose crops were grown on loan find themselves in debt again in order to grow another set of crops.

CPBC works with local church cooperatives and committees to coordinate relief efforts and conduct surveys of rehabilitation needs. International assistance finally reached Iloilo and Capiz after a month and people are slowly rebuilding their lives.  Their most immediate concerns are construction materials especially with new storms approaching land, they needed to build sturdier structures or reconstruct better temporary shelters.

“Diakonia’s help through CPBC gave us comfort in knowing that people know what happened to us.”

Text and photo by Niza Concepcion

for the Diakonia Asia blog

Empowering Rural Women for Inclusive Development

Empowering Rural Women for Inclusive Development

2013-10-30 

At the 1997 World Conference on Women in Beijing, international NGOs launched the commemoration of Rural Women’s Day, followed by a global campaign for education and empowerment of rural women.

The first International Day of Rural Women was observed worldwide on 15 October 2008 in response to the UN General Assembly resolution that recognized “the critical role and contribution of rural women, including indigenous women, in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty.”

Today over a hundred countries recognize the crucial role of women in rural economies of both developed and developing societies. In most parts of the developing world women participate in seed preservation, crop production, land cultivation, livestock care, storing and providing food, water and fuel for their families. Women engage in marketing and other off-farm activities to diversify their families’ livelihoods. In addition, they carry out vital functions of child and elderly care, as well as tending the sick and disabled. Rural women are key stakeholders in food security, sustainable natural resources, climate justice and overall socio-economic stability of their communities.

Despite their valuable contribution to their communities’ economic life, having little or no status in society, they are often unable to secure land ownership and property rights, and lack the power to access vital support and services such as credit, market inputs and extension services, training or education. Rural women bear the brunt of so-called development projects that evict farmers from their land, or fisher folk from their sources of livelihood; rural women have almost no means of recovering or gaining compensation in the event of evacuations caused by calamities or violence in conflict situations.

International Rural Women’s Day, which falls on October 15, is commemorated ahead of World Food Day (October 16) to emphasize the vital relationship between women and food security. Rural women comprise more than a quarter of the total world population. Five hundred million of them live below the poverty line in most countries. Women produce 60-80% of basic foodstuffs in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean; perform over 50% of the labor involved in intensive rice cultivation in Asia, and 30% of the agricultural work in industrialized countries. Yet they own less than one percent of the world’s wealth and have lesser chances of acquiring them.

World Rural Women’s Day aims to change the situation of rural women by promoting their rights, giving value and credit to their work and strengthening their capacities towards sustainability and development for their societies. This year’s commemoration was highlighted by UN Women’s Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka with a call to“enforce and protect the rights of rural women”, adding that “When women have access to land, there are improvements in household welfare, agricultural productivity and gender equality. And greater progress is made against poverty, gender-based violence and HIV/ AIDS. It makes everybody better off.”

 Text and photo by: Niza Concepcion

Diakonia Asia blog http://asia.diakonia.se

International Women’s Day: A Look Back

International Women’s Day: A Look Back

2014-03-17 

Women garment workers from New York City were at the front line of protests in 1909. Photo from the Socialist Worker website.

So many people from all walks of life now identify with the annual celebration of International Women’s Day (IWD) , it is hard to believe that it all started with women working in factories more than a hundred years ago in countries where industrialisation began such as England, Russia and the United States. Even before the 1900s, workers in factories were labouring more than eighteen hours a day, had no rest days, dismissed once they got sick or injured, paid meagre salaries and often fell into debt and exploitation.

It was a time of collective awareness that saw the first public demonstrations for better working conditions. Women workers from garment, textile and needle factories were at the front line of these protests. Women factory workers in England began marching even earlier in the 1820s. Meanwhile, the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire that claimed the lives of 146 young women shocked American society into realising that these unfortunate women had not even begun to enjoy their lives before their horrible deaths.

Soon a movement called “bread and roses” demanded decent working conditions that would allow women to enjoy the fruits of their income, be respected and have a full life. The “bread and roses” strikes involved thousands of immigrant women workers, as well as World War 1 widows. They were largely ignored by the male-dominated labour movement and public officials who were in collusion with the growing industrial business class, so much that women started organising themselves and held their own massive labour strikes.

From the same ranks came women who thought that in order to be taken seriously they should also take power through the vote. In war-time Russia, women protesting for ‘Bread and Peace’ one day in February which fell on 8 March on the Gregorian calendar successfully achieved their right to vote.  In 1911 and 1912, European countries such as Germany, Denmark, Austria and Switzerland officiated women workers day while Russia made it an official working holiday after the October revolution but since 1965 declared it a non-working holiday.

Finally in 1977, a United Nations General Assembly resolution invited member States to mark International Women’s Day officially in their countries. Today over 100 countries celebrate IWD and March 8^th is a national holiday in  Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China (for women only), Cuba, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Madagascar (for women only), Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Nepal (for women only), Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zambia.

Today, women and men celebrate International Women’s Day all over the world in various ways. In this photo, young people from Bangladesh rode bicycles to show their support for women’s rights.,

Meanwhile, women continue to march in the streets hundred years on, in Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Thailand. Demands for decent wage and working conditions, shorter working hours, social and health services, recognition and respect are as real today as they were then. Justice for victims of violence and discrimination are still as elusive. There are still women who are migrants, widows, single mothers, and from ethnic and religious minorities, gravely disadvantaged and vulnerable to abuse.

However, remarkable progress in the area of women’s political and economic status, recognition and legislation of women’s rights have been made throughout the years. Women’s rights movements gave birth to others such as child rights, environment, peace and development rights. These gains have been achieved for us through painstaking and lifelong work of those who have struggled before us.

In Asia, International Women’s Day is observed on the eve of the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community and the deadline of the Millennium Development Goals. It is everyone’s duty to continue this legacy of struggle for women’s equality and empowerment towards genuine development for all.

From the Diakonia Asia blog. 
Text by Niza Concepcion.
Photos by Socialist Worker and staff of Association of Development for Economic & Social Help (ADESH).

The Choice to be Child Free

The Choice to be Child Free

Sometime in June or July my husband had a vasectomy. It’s something we had talked about at length for nearly the entirety of our relationship up to that point. Which then had been nearly 13 years. We knew from the beginning neither of us really wanted children. We both have pretty awful genetics in terms of addiction, mental health, and physical deformities (though mild), and we also knew that we just didn’t want the responsibility of parenthood.
About four years after we started dating, my husband went for a consultation with his physician about the possibility of a vasectomy.  The doctor told him they would absolutely not perform the procedure since he was under 28, had no children, and was unmarried. I knew from various friends’ experiences that a tubal ligation wouldn’t be an option to me unless I was over 28 or had two or more children. Only now do I know that there are no laws or requirements in the state of Florida beyond a doctor’s willingness to perform a sterilization procedure. I was also not exactly sold on the idea of having an invasive surgical procedure that wasn’t medically necessary.
As a woman you hear things like “You’ll change your mind.” or “How selfish of you to not want children! That’s what your biologically supposed to do! If you don’t have kids you’re going against nature!” So, I held out. I spent five years on the depo provera shot because I had tried the pill during my last relationship and it just didn’t work with my body chemistry. Neither did the depo, but I wasn’t ready for either of us to go ahead with permanent sterilization, just in case what everyone said was true. Maybe I would change my mind and crave my supposed biological imperative.
Eight years passed by of us using multiple forms of contraception. When we were about to marry, I considered the possibility of children again. I would say I seriously considered it to the point of borderline existential crisis. Married people were supposed to have children. If I was about to be married, shouldn’t the next logical step be children? How do you progress a marriage without children? There was a crushing weight of expectation to have children and every time I avoided directly answering the question of “When are you planning to have babies?” I could feel the air around me prickle with disappointment and immediately cleared with a breeze of skepticism and dismissive, self-righteous commentary of “Of course, you’ll have kids! It’s okay to wait a few years.” Which was almost always followed up with “Don’t wait too long though! You only have so much time to do these things! You don’t want to be the old mom!”
The truth was, I didn’t want to be a mom, but I was terrified of what people would think if I openly embraced the decision to remain childless. My husband and I half-joked about how we were never having kids. His favorite response was always that he was the only child our relationship needed. Mine was that he was the only child our relationship could afford! Grown up toys are expensive!
I still don’t want to be a mom. I am almost 33 years old and the older I get, the more certain I am of my choice not to have kids. Only now I have enough faith in myself and my decision to respond to the You’ll-change-your-mind-ers with a polite “No, I won’t.”
Last summer my husband and I discussed the possibility of vasectomy again and decided that not only was it the easiest form of permanent birth control, but it was also the least expensive or invasive, and also the most effective. And if by some weird chance we ever did change our minds, we would look into adoption. He made the appointment, had the procedure — which only took about 20 minutes, and by the next day we were out to lunch with friends.
My husband had his procedure on a Friday afternoon, which meant he had to leave early and there probably wouldn’t be any partying that weekend. But when my husband told his male coworkers he was going in for his vasectomy, more than a few of them said he should made me have a tubal ligation instead. He rolled his eyes and explained that the vasectomy was way better because he would never have to worry about having kids again, wife or not.  He told me the guys had been giving him a hard time and I was admittedly irrationally annoyed. So I did what I always do. I took to the internet and posted this little gem on my tumblr.

Anyone who knows what a tubal ligation entails vs. a vasectomy and still advocates for a woman have an invasive medical procedure requiring anesthesia and incisions rather than an outpatient medical procedure that can take less than 20 minutes and only a few days of recovery (literally, we went to lunch the next day) should probably re-evaluate their life choices. If you value your sperm more than a woman undergoing a major surgical procedure, YOU ARE PROBABLY TERRIBLE.

Yes, I know it’s rude, but in all honesty, if you and your partner are considering permanent sterilization the vasectomy is the least complicated and most effective (failure rate for vasectomies is 1 in 2000 which is considerably better than tubal ligations for which there is one failure in every 200 to 300 cases). I didn’t expect to anyone to reply since my tumblr following is so small, but someone did.

So, your husband should have his ability to produce offspring removed, so you don’t have to? that’s entitlement, and as a result, you’re an entitled bitch.

I didn’t know this person. They didn’t know me. They didn’t know the situation, which I did explain, and still I was called an entitled bitch. All because my husband came up with the idea to have a vasectomy and after much discussion he finally did it. Some how though, it was my fault that his ability to produce offspring was removed. I was the selfish one.
I was selfish if I didn’t have children, I was selfish if my husband chose to sacrifice his reproductive ability for our relationship. If I had children and wasn’t able to care for them the way they deserved, I would be irresponsible and selfish. If I had children and still worked full time, I would be labeled a selfish, entitled bitch because I should be caring for kids instead of focusing on my career and trying to ‘Lean In.’
You know what? I am selfish. I’m selfish because I refuse to be bullied into submission by name calling or passive aggressive know-it-alls. I’m selfish because I would rather choose a child than have a child. I’m selfish because I don’t know if I would be a good parent and I refuse to take the risk of completely screwing up another person’s life just to fulfill some socio-biological imperative.
I’m okay with that. --Camicia Bennett

The Elephant Nature Park Rescue and Rehabilitation shelter in Chiangmai Thailand

My brother and his son, my six year old nephew visited me in Chiangmai for the first time this week. On Monday we went to an elephant shelter for abused and exploited elephants. My little nephew had never seen real live elephants before so he was all for feeding, petting and giving them a bath in the lake around the park. We joined a group of 10 visitors for a day-long interaction with the elephants which had one form of deformity or another. All of these elephants were rescued from villages, logging industries, tour companies and even neighboring Burma. All are being healed, rehabilitated and given a place of peace and safety from any human activity except for the care and recovery they receive at the shelter. I've been so amazed at the way my nephew treated those elephants. He did not see their "disabilities"-he just loved them all! Being the only child in the group he was constantly reminded to "go closer, she can't walk far- her leg's broken", or "don't let her reach too far for the food, she's totally blind"... the child adjusted himself to the situation immediately! No questions, no pity looks, no drama. And yet who told him about all the horrible things that got them that way? US! Without asking for it my nephew got an education in how bad people can get at the same time that he learned to love elephants in real life. Stupid adults. Why couldn't we just let him enjoy the moment first and wait for him to ask the questions later? Another hard lesson that only children can teach us...