From the quiet confines of the university library where she worked, to the mud-laden environs of her ‘adopted’ slum of Mehbullahpur has been a challenging journey for 35-year-old Shakila Begum.

Hundreds of poor families live in this slum, a mere 8 km from the upmarket Hazratganj locality in the heart of Lucknow. Shakila wanted to help the Muslim women here understand their rights.

Now a fellow with Jagori, a women’s training and resource centre, she has so far enrolled around 200 slum children in schools; organised women in self-financing income-generating groups; and imparted information on health and gender equality. She has, in fact, steered the community away from poverty and the unkind stereotypes projected about it.

Giving up her secure job at Lucknow University, she set up Aagaze Insaaf (initiating justice). However, when she first walked through the area and saw the plight of the hungry, malnourished children teeming around, she wondered how she could break the ice and win their confidence.

Click here to read the full story on The Hindu Business Line

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Susan notes: According to Wikipedia, The New York Post is the 13th oldest newspaper in the United States, and the sixth largest by circulation. It's owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

The New York Post editor fired after speaking out against a cartoon depicting the author of the president's stimulus package as a dead chimpanzee has sued the paper. And as part of her complaint, Sandra Guzman levels some remarkable, embarrassing, and potentially damaging allegations.

Guzman has filed a complaint against News Corporation, the New York Post and the paper's editor in chief Col Allan in the Southern District Court of New York, alleging harassment as well as "unlawful employment practices and retaliation."

As part of the 38-page complaint, Guzman paints the Post newsroom as a male-dominated frat house and Allan in particular as sexist, offensive and domineering. Guzman alleges that she and others were routinely subjected to misogynistic behavior. She says that hiring practices at the paper -- as well as her firing -- were driven by racial prejudices rather than merit

According to the complaint:

"On one occasion when Ms. Guzman and three female employees of the Post were sharing drinks at an after-work function. Defendant Allan approached the group of women, pulled out his blackberry and asked them 'What do you think of this?' On his blackberry was a picture of a naked man lewdly and openly displaying his penis. When Ms. Guzman and the other female employees expressed their shock and disgust at being made to view the picture, Defendant Allan just smirked... [N]o investigation was ever conducted and the Company failed to take any steps to address her complaints."

Read the full Huffingtom Post article by Sam Stein here.

Malalai Joya, a 31-year-old activist and politician, was once called “the bravest woman in Afghanistan” by the BBC.

During the Taliban years, she defied her country’s rulers by running underground girls’ schools. After the Taliban’s fall, she helped start an orphanage and a medical clinic, and eventually became the youngest member of Afghanistan’s legislature.

She has been fearless in taking on the warlords who populate the government of Hamid Karzai—declared the presidential victor Monday after a runoff election was canceled—so much so that in 2007, her political opponents voted to suspend her from parliament on the grounds that she had “insulted” the institution.

Calling for her reinstatement, six female Nobel Peace Prize laureates compared her to Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi, describing her as “a model for women everywhere seeking to make the world more just.”

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Photo @ Tom Stoddart / Getty Images

A Swiss investment company plans to raise awareness about the shortage of women on corporate boards around the world and generate returns for its investors in the process, The New York Times’s Julia Werdigier reports from London.

Naissance Capital, based in Zurich, is to start the Women’s Leadership Fund in January, which will invest exclusively in companies whose boards include women, or take minority stakes in companies that do not “understand the need for greater female representation” and use it as leverage to push through changes.

R. James Breiding, a co-founder of Naissance Capital and a former director of Rothschild Corporate Finance, said the fund was created after several studies showed a correlation between the number of female directors and a company’s performance.

“We feel companies that select and recruit people on merit should do better,” Mr. Breiding said. “Having greater diversity and independence of opinions helps.”

The fund’s board includes Kim Campbell, the former prime minister of Canada; Cherie Blair, a lawyer and the wife of Tony Blair, the former British prime minister; and Jenny Shipley, the former prime minister of New Zealand. Naissance has lined up $200 million from institutional investors and individuals to invest in 30 to 40 companies around the world, and plans to increase the size of the fund eventually to about $2 billion.

Naissance, which was founded in 1999 and specializes in what it calls “niche investment opportunities,” is one of a handful of firms that have created funds over the past three years to invest in companies with female senior executives.

Click here to read the full story on The New York Times

 

Transsexuals in the Gulf call Bahraini lawyer Fawziya Janahi "guardian angel". She is the Arab world's only female lawyer who takes up cases on behalf of clients who want to change their sex.

Janahi's clients want legal permission to undergo sex change operations. While the law is quite straightforward on this in Bahrain, the lawyer says it is more difficult in other countries in the region.

"But that wouldn't stop me from helping transgendered trapped in their bodies," she says. "I'm ready to challenge the odds!"

Janahi, 47, spoke with IPS about her unusual practice, her future and hopes of greater acceptance of transgendered/transsexuals in Gulf societies.

Click here to read the full story:
By Suad Hamada
Inter Press Service News