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By vpadmin, March 28, 2011

Bugesera, Mar 28, 2011 — The New Times/All Africa Global Media Printer Friendly

Four women from Bugesera district will travel to Barefoot College in India, for a six-month training in solar energy installation and maintenance.

Claudine Uwimana, 48, Odette Mukarumongi, 50, Cecile Nyiramubandwa, 48 and Dative Mukantabana,47 all residents of Karambi village in Nyamata sector, will travel on Monday.

The training is funded by the government of India, while Rwanda United Kingdom Goodwill Organisation (RUGO) will raise 25,000 Pound Sterling required to install solar power in 110 houses in Karambi village.

The women will learn how to fabricate, install and maintain solar powered household lighting system.

They are expected to use their skills, to install lights in the Karambi homes.

The quartet were yesterday briefed on the arrangements and given the necessary travel documents.

Mike Hughes, the Chairman of RUGO, explained why this particular training is unique.

“It is amazing that illiterate women are trained to be formidable Solar Engineers. Wait after six months, these women will be performing miracles in Karambi village, yet they never went beyond primary school,” he said.

Louis Rwagaju, the Mayor of Bugesera, reminded the women the importance of the training.

He appealed to them to focus all their attention on the training, saying that their fellow residents expected a lot from them.

Claudine Uwimana, the group leader, said that she was excited.

“The fact that I have never traveled beyond Kigali, notwithstanding, I am boarding a plane to India. I will beat all odds including the language barrier, to gain enough skills to have solar energy in my village,” she said.

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By vpadmin, January 13, 2011

Did you know that women in rural areas produce at least 50 percent of the world’s food? In Uganda, 90 percent of women living in rural areas work in agriculture, compared to 53 percent of men. These women do 85 percent of the planting and weeding, 55 percent of the land preparation, and 98 percent of all food processing.

http://www.grameenfoundation.org/jan2011-enews#mobile

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By vpadmin, December 28, 2010

* Afghan micro loans face religious challenges

* Failure to repay can trigger domestic violence

By Michelle Nichols

KABUL, Dec 28 (Reuters) – In a dimly lit room at the back of an Afghan house, 21-year-old Zahara is crouched on a plank of wood weaving a large carpet on a loom that she was able to buy using a microfinance loan of $1,100.

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/microfinance-faces-hurdles-in-empowering-afghan-women/

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By vpadmin, December 17, 2010

In October GSMA launched the “mWomen Program,” with support from Cherie Blair and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (”mWomen” is for mobile women). The goal is to half the number of women in the developing world who lack mobile phones within three years by putting phones in the hands of another 150 million women.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=mobile-phones-for-women

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By vpadmin, October 20, 2010

Like so many highly trained young women these days, Elizabeth Scharpf has choices. She could be working in a Manhattan office tower with her Harvard Business School classmates, soaring through the ranks as a banker or business executive and aspiring to become a senator or a C.E.O. someday…Yet the women exerting the greatest pressure for change often aren’t the presidents and tycoons but those toiling further down the pyramid, driven by a passion to create a better world. And in particular, a better world for women.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/magazine/24volunteerism-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1

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By vpadmin, October 7, 2010

A woman living in sub-Saharan Africa is 23% less likely than a man to own a mobile phone, according to research. This figure rises to 24% in the Middle East and increases again to 37% for a woman living in South Asia, found the study by the GSM Association.  In total, it found, 300 million fewer women than men in developing countries owned a mobile.  An initiative called mWomen proposes to halve this “gender gap” within three years.

The programme, championed by Cherie Blair, the wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton aims to provide 150 million women around the world with access to mobile phone technology.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11492427

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By vpadmin, September 22, 2010

UNITED NATIONS – For years, progress on the Millennium Development Goal of improving maternal health was painfully slow. Now, MDG 5 has become the cornerstone of a new global health strategy which is expected to be the engine that propels progress toward all eight goals.

The three-day MDG summit will culminate with the launch of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s “Global Strategy on Women and Children’s Health” on Wednesday (Sept. 22).

http://www.devex.com/en/articles/mdg-summit-makes-maternal-health-strategy-its-crowning-achievement

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By vpadmin, September 21, 2010

UNITED NATIONS — UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday announced a 40-billion-dollar drive to improve the health of women and children, which he said would save millions of lives around the world.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jZGy1n7Fbe2lzQ4TPmbjO3wi32SQ

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By vpadmin, September 20, 2010

WASHINGTON — Nearly three billion people in the developing world cook their meals on primitive indoor stoves fueled by crop waste, wood, coal and dung. Every year, according to the United Nations, smoke from these stoves kills 1.9 million people, mostly women and children, from lung and heart diseases and low birth weight.

The stoves also contribute to global warming as a result of the millions of tons of soot they spew into the atmosphere and the deforestation caused by cutting down trees to fuel them.

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to announce a significant commitment to a group working to address the problem, with a goal of providing 100 million clean-burning stoves to villages in Africa, Asia and South America by 2020. The United States is providing about $50 million in seed money over five years for the project, known as the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/science/earth/21stove.html?_r=1

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By vpadmin,

UNITED NATIONS – The statistics for maternal mortality have improved by 34 percent. That means a woman is no longer dying every minute, but one woman is still dying every minute and a half.

No doubt prenatal care, malnutrition, access to a hospital and skilled practitioners and professionals could prevent most of the deaths. As could education for girls that keeps them in school longer.

But the squeamishness of talking about family planning or contraception — in short sex — is a no-no in many nations. An estimated 215 million women in the developing world want to delay or avoid pregnancy but have no access to contraception or fear the side effects or their families object, says the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/evelyn-leopold/maternal-mortality-can-we_b_731096.html