This lady with a big, sweet smile is Eliafura. She lives and works in Tanzania, making beautiful batiks and tie-dyed materials. With the support of The Gatsby Trust – an organisation funded by Sport Relief – Eliafura has registered her business and learned important health and safety rules around the chemicals she uses. She also now trains other women in her village – they bring her material and she teaches them how to make the colourful patterns. Eliafura’s fabrics sell well, both locally (especially in nearby schools, where teachers like to buy them) and overseas. Continue reading
Tag Archives: IWD
International Women’s Day 2013
It is International Women’s Day on Friday.
Last year, I marked it on my blog with a post about Save the Children’s campaign to give women around the world access to reproductive health care.
This year, my thoughts have stayed a little closer to home, and I’ve decided to acknowledge some of the many incredible women who have had a direct impact on my life.
I started the post thinking I would just mention one or two, but as I started writing I found myself overwhelmed – in a good way – and I couldn’t even begin to narrow it down like that.
Women get a lot of stick sometimes, for their cattiness or for being seen as too competitive. True enough, there are some rotten ones out there… but there are also some incredible communities of women who support and nurture each other, and they are far more worthy of our attention. I count myself very lucky that in my life so far the good eggs have outweighed the stinkers by far.
Happy International Women’s Day
I will confess, I used to be a bit squeamish about calling myself a feminist. I thought it meant that I had to stop shaving my legs and wearing a bra, neither of which I’m prepared to do. But as I’ve grown older and, y’know, grown up a bit, I’ve realised that’s really not the case. Feminism, and women’s rights, are about issues far more fundamental than my personal grooming habits.
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