Sophia Network

Ctrl+Alt+Shift

Ctrl.Alt.Shift is a new youth initiative from Christian Aid which aims to be an interactive community of young people who are active in the fight against global injustice and poverty. Members can upload their own content to the site and the emphasis is on encouraging people to be proactive. 

Ctrl.Alt.Shift produces a well-designed magazine which is distributed free through clubs and shops. The most recent edition is on Gender and Power and you can download it here. The editorial begins, 'Millions of people all over the world are downtrodden, victimised and taken advantage of - we all know that. But which group of people do you reckon are the most discriminated against? Is it people with the 'wrong' colour skin? Or people born in the 'wrong' class? Actually it's people who are the 'wrong' sex. Women are the world's poorest, most marginalised and discriminated against people on the planet.' With articles on girl power in Iran, female genital mutilation and the 50 million missing women in India, it's not an easy read but I think it's an important one. I liked this comment from Riz Ahmed in his column: 'We need to stop thinking of women's rights as something that just affects women. It stops everyone from reaching their full potential. If we can tackle the discrimination of women, we can reach society's economic potential, its self-sufficiency and its political reform. Until then we are limiting what we can be.'

Article: Cambodia - home of holy women by Jenny Baker

Our first morning in Cambodia, we sat in a jet-lagged haze, as the wonderful Kate Pieper from World Relief briefed us on the next few days ahead. One of the highlights of the trip was to be a night in a village with a Cambodian family, giving us a small taste of what it’s like to be female, poor and HIV positive in this country - something that I felt excited about but also slightly nervous. That apprehension grew when Kate explained that we would be taken there on the back of motorbikes, as the roads to the villages weren’t good enough for a car. And when she produced brightly coloured sarongs and explained that there would be no toilets so we would need these to preserve our modesty as we peed in a field and washed in public by the water pump, I did wonder what we were letting ourselves in for.

The trip was organised by Tearfund for women in the UK to experience something of what life is like for women in a developing country. The nine of us, three from the Sophia Network, hardly knew each other at the start, but quickly bonded through sharing such an amazing experience. The first few days we visited some of the villages where World Relief works. We met women in a care group who pass on health education to their peers using laminated cards with pictures on. Each of them is responsible for visiting ten to 15 local families and their confidence, health, status and relationships with their husbands have all improved as a result. We sat in on an HIV education session for boys led by a young Muslim guy who bravely talked about how to stay free of the virus, with a condom demonstration, and didn’t seem at all phased by us sitting on the back rows. We watched as some energetic children’s workers held the attention of around 200 kids as they taught them about safety and God’s love, while parents and villagers round the edges also took it all in.

Global gender gap report

The Global Gender Gap Report 2008 reveals that Norway is the country that has been most successful in closing the equality gap between men and women. The UK comes 13th having dropped two places in the last year, and Ireland is up one place in 8th. The report is published by the World Economic Forum and comments on 130 countries which cover 92% of the world's population. It measures the size of the gender gap in four critical areas of inequality between men and women, looking at how countries share resources and opportunities between their male and female population:

1) Economic participation and opportunity – outcomes on salaries, participation levels and access to high-skilled employment
2) Educational attainment – outcomes on access to basic and higher-level education
3) Political empowerment – outcomes on representation in decision-making structures
4) Health and survival – outcomes on life expectancy and sex ratio

More than two-thirds of countries have improved their ranking, showing that overall the world has made progress towards gender equality. You can read the report here.

Mustard Seed Associates on the world's women

Tom and Christine Sine have been long-time champions of people making a difference in their local communities in ways that may seem insignificant but are rich with kingdom potential. Their Mustard Seed Associates site 'provides resources and a network for committed followers of Jesus to anticipate the future, decode the culture, convey the Kingdom of God , and create new ways of being a difference and make a difference.'

And on its blog, Christine writes about the inequalities experienced by women in developing countries, giving links to other articles and information. The factsheet on gender-based violence in the Middle East is sobering and I loved this prayer for the world's women. 

The Girl Effect

What do you think of this campaign?

When I first saw it, I thought 'but what about boys?' Don't they need as much investment and development? Isn't it unbalanced to focus just on girls? 

This is from the Center for Global Development who produced a report called Girls Count which is used in the campaign:

'One person in eight is a girl or young woman age 10–24. Young people are the fastest growing segment of the population in developing countries, and their welfare is a fundamental input for key economic and social outcomes -- including the size and competitiveness of tomorrow's labor force, future economic growth, improved governance, and healthy civil societies.

But girls in developing countries are in trouble. They face systematic disadvantages over a wide range of welfare indicators, including health, education, nutrition, labor force participation, and the burden of household tasks. Because of deprivation and discriminatory cultural norms, many poor girls are forced to marry at very young ages and are extraordinarily vulnerable to HIV, sexual violence, and physical exploitation. Lacking a full range of economic opportunities and devalued because of gender bias, many girls are seen as unworthy of investment or protection by their families.'

Because girls are so discriminated against globally, a campaign that focuses on them won't ignore or disadvantage boys; it will just help to redress the balance and hopefully move towards girls and boys being treated more equally. Some of the stats quoted are quite remarkable. For example, women who earn money will invest 90% of it in the well-being of their family; men will invest 35%. Find out more at the Girl Effect website.

International Women's Day

International Women’s Day falls on 8 March each year and is a good opportunity to remind ourselves of the challenges facing women in developing countries. This year ActionAid have published a report called Hit or Miss which highlights the disproportionate effect of poverty on the lives of women and children and which argues that if the Millennium Development Goals are to be met, then a focus on women is essential and systematic discrimination against women and girls needs to be tackled. You can download the report from the ActionAid site here.

The statistics highlighted by ActionAid are sobering:

• Women grow 60% of the world’s food but own 1% of the land.
• 60% of people with HIV and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa are women.
• 70% of those living in poverty around the world are women.
• One in five women will be subject to rape or attempted rape during her lifetime.
• 41 million girls worldwide are still denied a primary education and two thirds of the world’s illiterate young people are women.
• In Pakistan and India, girls have a 30-50% higher chance of dying before their fifth birthday than boys.
• Women and children in Africa spend 40 billion hours collecting water per year – equivalent to a year’s labour for France’s entire workforce.

You can find out more about the work that ActionAid is doing on women’s rights here.

One of my dreams for the Sophia Network is that while we support and encourage one another here, we’ll be able to take positive action to connect with women in developing countries whose challenges make ours fade into insignificance.