Tuesday, March 29, 2011
International Women's Day video
I know the video is posted somewhere in this blog but I just wanted to post it again. I just wanted to post an embedded version.
If you want to watch it in its actual youtube page, just click the screen of the video and a new page would pop up directing you to the actual page.
of Social Work. Since January we have been working alongside the
Women’s Interval House in preparation for this day. We have been
preparing a video which you are about to see which we feel informs on
women’s issues and celebrates women’s achievements over the last one
hundred years.
We had quite the experience in the making of this video. The research
process began as a somber one, as we found that the plight of women’s
inequity remains all over the world. We also found startling facts –
how the wage gap still widens, how one in three women around the world
have experienced some form of abuse, and how the UN Millennium Goals
are still so far from being met worldwide.
But we also read about great women – about women who have changed the
world in many ways. We learned about Louise Arbour, the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, Senator Anne Cools, the first black
person elected to the Canadian senate and a founder of one of the first
women’s shelters in Canada, Dr. Samantha Nutt, the founder of World
Child International which provides humanitarian aid to children
affected by war, and Margaret Atwood, a critically acclaimed Canadian
writer. These stories inspired us and reminded us that social change
is possible.
We’ve been learning in the classroom that social change is slow.
Problems must be viewed as public, not as private, and this can be done
through “consciousness raising”. People must remember that their
problems are not unique and result from oppressive structures. As
experiences are shared, people begin to mobilize to create change. So
where do we go from here? The inequities do not have to last forever.
Global attitudes must change towards women. Abuse can end. The wage
gap can disappear. We’ve come far in the past century. In this
country, we’ve gained the right to vote, the right to hold office,
we’ve had a female prime minister, we travel to foreign countries
alone, we’ve become CEOs, and we’ve left the home to go to work. We
can keep moving forward and removing the barriers that are in our way.
There’s three and a half billion of us after all.
So without further ado, here is our video:
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
United Nations information on women work and poverty
Work:
Women are predominantly and increasingly employed in the services sectors.
Vulnerable employment- own account work and contributing family work- is prevalent in many countries in Africa and Asia, especially among women.
The informal sector is an important source of employment for both women and men in the less developed region but more so for women.
Occupational segregation and gender gaps continue to persist in all regions.
Part-time employment is common for women in most of the more developed regions and some less developed regions, and it is increasing almost everywhere for both women and men.
Women spend at least twice as mcuh time as men on domestic work, and when all work- paid and unpaid- is considered, women work longer hours than men do.
Poverty:
Households of lone mothers with young children are more likely to be poor than households of lone fathers with young children.
Women are overrepresented among the older poor in the more developed regions.
Existing statuatory and customary laws limit women's access to land and other types of property in most countries in Africa and about half the countries in Asia.
The work that was brough last night went together well!
Here's the info I had brought:
3 functions of the group:
1. A member of our group sent letters to governemnt officials to raise awareness and support for International Women's Day.
2. Our group created a video that outlines the history of International Women's Day. It depicts the accomplishments of women while nting various oppressions they have face.
3. On International Women's Day, our group participated in the hosting of a celebratory gala at Carmen's Banquet Hall.
The words I had brought for the learning process were:
confusing, overwhelming, incompetent, unprepared, excited
micommunucation, disconnected
plans, lack of necessary skills, brainstorming
editing, communicating, working
relieved, proud, happy
Good idea to put it in that word picture Jen! It looked great :)
In terms of the presentation next week:
- we are going to be showing the video with a laptop- I can bring mine and can someone else also bring theirs in case we have technical difficulties?
- Was the location and time ever finalized? I can come early to set up. Does anyone have gala pamplets to also display in front of our poster?
I think that's all the final details. See you on Tuesday!
Miriam
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
How we felt in this process
miscommunicating, disconnection, storming, conflict, tension, pressure, disagreeing, friction, struggling, striving, challenged, trepidation, floundering, hesitant, unsure
cohesion, planning, brainstorming, solidarity, activity, liveliness, harmony, structure, initiative, strategy, ambition, creativity, progress, collaboration, criticizing,
editing, communicating, working, progressing, enterprising, improvising, norming, thriving, innovating, action, revising, examining, reflecting, nervous, uncertain, tentative,
relieved, proud, happy, results, performing, analyzing, evaluating, monitoring, accomplished, satisfied, celebrating, motivated, surprised, commemorating, growing,
Monday, March 21, 2011
Learned from making the video and advocacy
Here is my part for the poster thing. I was assigned to do what we learned about advocacy and doing the video project.
Learned doing the video project
•Not easy to create (i.e. Trying to make it look professional and presentable)
•Time consuming
•A lot of trial and error
•Teamwork is crucial
Learned doing advocacy
•Takes a lot of time
•A gradual process
•Required a lot of work
•Not easy to do
•Networking is important*
*Not sure if we should mention this. Was thinking that we could use the UN women thing as an example of networking.
Hey folks!
Here is what I have so far regarding the "Implementation and Advocating" phase of our group work. I'll bring my computer to our meeting tomorrow, if we need to put everything into one document.
Implementation and advocating
The process of advocacy while working with Interval House included the following:
Beforehand, part of the advocacy included contacting local politicians prior to the gala to find out if they would be attending or were interested in supporting Zonta International in some capacity. In speaking with them (or their secretaries), I was able to give them some information about Jared’s place, a branch of Interval House, and give them details about the event
At the gala, we presented guests with information about Jared’s place in order to persuade them to buy raffle tickets in support of Jared’s Place
Though we understand that using media can sometimes backfire, our mentor requested that we create a video to be played at the International Women’s Day gala, that drew attention to gender injustice worldwide. We feel that this method was very effective in portraying the necessary information, and proved to be a crucial to the implementation and advocacy processes
See you tomorrow, Thode B106 at 6pm!
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Poster Stuff
Saturday, March 12, 2011
UN WOMEN
This is the contact info of the communications person from UN WOMEN (Canada chapter)
ovais.shah@unwomencanada.org
he said to cc: info@unwomencanada.org.
I think before we make any communications with this guy we should put together a proper proposal, and anyone who is interested should put together a resume. Then we will send it all together at once. I guess next class we can discuss it, but I really want to do it, I hope you guys do too!
I am going to look over the MSU site to see what steps we need to take.
See you all on Tuesday!
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Next on the to-do
I was wondering what supplies we need to put together the posters i can pick them up this weekend.
Kristen