AIDemocracy.org | empowerment

Ricken Patel: The Opportunity Of Our Time

April 24, 2013 by AIDemocracy Leave a Comment

By Rafael Panlilio Last week at the Guildhall in London, Ricken Patel gave the Commonwealth Lecture, a once-a-year event hosted by the Commonwealth Foundation featuring distinguished speakers discussing issues and ideas pertinent to the global community. Patel, founder of the online activist group Avaaz, delivered his lecture entitled “The Opportunity Of Our Time” proposing that a “new politics, a new activism, a new democracy” is coming, empowering us, bringing us together, and changing our world. “Practical idealism is not just our … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Less Tagged With: empowerment, opportunity, poverty

Empowering Communities in Ethiopia

April 11, 2013 by AIDemocracy Leave a Comment

By Suzanne York, 6degreesofpopulation.org. There is nothing like going out into the field and seeing first-hand what is happening on the ground to validate your work and experience. That’s when you learn how projects, ideas and initiatives can really work (or in some cases, not work). Here in Ethiopia, after the recent conference of the Population, Health and Environment (PHE) Consortium, a small group of participants spent the day traveling to the Guraghe Zone and the Guraghe Peoples Self-Help Development Organization (GPSDO) site, about 200 … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Less Tagged With: empowerment, Ethiopia, Sustainability

Horizontal Leadership and the Wall Street Occupation

October 11, 2011 by Paul Guaglianone 1 Comment

Toyota is currently running a series of television advertisements that highlight parents and their young adult children who have just moved away from home. In the ads, the young adults assume their parents must be lonely because of the lack of activity on the parents’ social networking site. The irony of the commercial comes when the parents are shown participating in activities with groups of people and the young adults are shown siting alone staring at a laptop screen. Although this advertisement is geared towards showing parents they can now trade … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Less Tagged With: empowerment, new media

‘Hey Sexy Lady!’ Shouting Back Against the Pervs

January 26, 2011 by Gillian Rollason

“Hey sexy lady! Check THIS out...” [Michael Jackson-esque groin thrust in my direction] ‘Ohh please’ I think 'please wait while I hurry over and give you my phone number, you prehistoric, knuckle-dragging moron’ You may assume that the slimy guy leering at you in the street or beeping his car horn is simply a victim of tragic social ineptitude, but this situation is more sinister. Street harassment ranges from whistles, shouting, and dodgy trouser pocket movements to full blown groping and physical attacks. Where does … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Less, Security, Sex and Justice Tagged With: BBC, dialogue, discrimination, Egypt, empowerment, Gender, Haiti, human rights, Human Rights and Social Justice, Reproductive Health, sexual and reproductive health, social justice, technology, violence against women, women, youth

America’s Dance: How Americans aren’t as Flexible as They’d Like to Think

December 6, 2010 by Hannah Nemer

I’m going to take a break from the immediately political to look at the immediately artistic. This past week I sat mesmerized by Sutra, a joint performance of Shaolin Monks and a Danish choreographer. The combination of poetic dance with harsh, yet somehow fluid, kung fu was entrancing. The choreographer sat towards the front of the stage, manipulating blocks and figures – actions mirrored by the monks on a larger scale. Over the course of the performance, this master manipulator was forced to enter the world which he controlled – to experience … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Less, Security Tagged With: empowerment, Islam, US-Muslim World Relations

Education, Empowerment, and the Girl Effect

November 29, 2010 by Sydney Kornegay

From the outside, the school in Umumpura, India seemed unspectacular- plain brick walls, a tin roof, and a dusty play yard. It was the inside, however, that held the true gem: a classroom full of young, confidant female students. The girls were an anomaly for the Rajasthan region of India. In a state where rural girls get married at an average age of 17, and 80.7% drop out of school before they are 16, many of the girls had come from deeply impoverished families.[1] They had been required to work at home rather than receive a primary education. Yet … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Sex and Justice Tagged With: education, empowerment, global health, women

The Power of Youth

July 29, 2010 by Leah Jarvis

Maxalia(Jamaica) & Kemi(Nigeria) speaking to US news station

Half of the world’s population is under the age of 25. Out of the 3 billion people under the age of 25, almost 1.8 billion are between the ages of 10 and 24.1 Youth make up a staggering portion of earth’s inhabitants. And yet if you watch the news about current politics, most of today’s leaders are grey haired. Youth are often not involved in decision-making processes, even when those decisions affect them. In cultures around the world youth are taught from a young age to respect our elders. Indeed we should respect our elders, since generally … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Sex and Justice Tagged With: empowerment, sexual and reproductive health, youth leaders

Female Condoms: Wanted by Youth

August 4, 2008 by AIDemocracy

by: Kim Whipkey originally posted on www.aids2008.com Young people want female condoms. They are seeking information and better access to them. They are demanding the only effective and currently available method to prevent HIV that young women and women can initiate themselves. This groundswell of interest in female condoms surfaced at the Mexico YouthForce Pre-Conference, particularly during a workshop I co-facilitated around expanding prevention options for women and girls. To my elation, virtually all of the 40 workshop participants had heard of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Sex and Justice Tagged With: empowerment, global health, HIV/AIDS, sexual and reproductive health, women