Rising Voices » Women Activists Yemen

EWAMT: The Goal of Teaching 200 Yemeni Women to Blog

Eddie Avila — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 14:18:07 +0000

Rising Voices note: The following is a republication of a post written by Ghaida'a al-Absi about the completion of the Rising Voices grantee project in Yemen and their goal to teach 200 Yemeni women to blog despite the challenges.

The first post in the Empowerment of Women Activists in Media Techniques - Yemen (EWAMT) blog was about the “Ignorance of Blogging in Yemen,” which was true in 2009 at the beginning of implementing the EWAMT project. However, blogging has now become more popular in Yemen. We won't say that it is because of our initiative, but also because of many other youths who have spread these techniques. Some of these youth were trainees in one of our EWAMT sessions. Now I can say that someone who may not have a blog at least he/she knows what does the word means. Here, I will talk about our journey with EWAMT whose mission was to spread the notion of blogging to 200 young Yemeni women. Here, we are finalizing our project with the pride of what we have done as team, and with appreciation to Rising Voices for giving us the opportunity.

We still remember our first training on May 20, 2009, and how hard it was to organize the posters, brochures, coffee breaks, folders with notes, and the search for an inexpensive computer lab, etc. The first step is always the hardest to make, but once we started, we felt enthusiastic to finish our mission. Then we received many letters from local NGOs nominating their female employees to the blogging workshops.

EWAMT also conducted a workshop in the city of Ta'izz, in partnership with the National Culture Center for Youth. Ta'izz is located 225-km away from the capital, Sana'a. It is very well-known in Yemen as the Dreamer city, and it is where the Yemeni revolution started, so it is also known now as the revolutionary city.

I participated in training organized by NDI in July 2011 about “Good Citizen Journalistic Practices“. In this training, we came out with the most important ethics that any citizen media activist or blogger should have. I have transmitted this knowledge to my trainees later.

Another fact of life is that no success is without obstacles or challenges. We went through many critical challenges that made us very frustrated. One of the most overwhelming obstacles was the electricity cutting, and the slow speed in Internet connectivity. In addition, we could not rent another lab with a generator because it was too expensive for us. So we stuck with the lab we had rented before at the beginning of the project from All Girls Society for Development, but because of the electricity problem we had to delay part of our workshop so many times. The second challenge was for me as the implementer of the project. We were implementing EWAMT project under the umbrella of Hand in Hand initiative. This initiative broke apart, and I founded another team and initiative called Kefiaia, which means “enough' in Arabic.

The EWAMT workshops were not only about technical issues of blogging, but also were about exploring, discussing, and raising awareness about issues had being rarely talked about in the public sphere because of the conservativeness of the Yemeni society, and sometimes because of the fear from the Yemeni intelligence would arrest anyone who expresses his/her discontent about the Yemeni regime.

The Yemeni revolution started on February 2011, and it was not a surprise for us. Most of the people were enraged about the Yemeni government, and when Tunisia started the revolution series, it encouraged the Yemenis to break their silence and demonstrate peacefully. Most of the Yemenis are very well armed (Yemen's Weapons Culture), but they left their weapons at home and went to demonstrate; to prove to the whole world their pacifism. The revolution has two sides effects. The positive side is that it heightened awareness among people, both politically and socially. Moreover, it also gave us hope that one day we will see a new, developed Yemen. At the level of EWAMT project, many of women blogged about the revolution from their perspective. The negative side that a lot of people lost their jobs because many foreign organizations and companies left Yemen due to the continuous threats of the Yemeni regime to drag the country into civil war. Furthermore, as a kind of punishment, the Yemeni government had cut the electricity for 23 hours a day, so we had only one hour to charge our electronic devices in order to do the essential work. In this situation, it was almost impossible to finish training the last 20 women.

The revolution lasted for more than 10 months and it is still going on. During all that time, we severely suffered from a shortage of electricity, water, and fuel. We stopped the EWAMT workshops for many months, and then we reached a solution as to how to finish our work under these hardships. We bought two additional batteries for laptops and two internet USB modems. Once a week, I trained two women in my house by using the laptops and the internet USBs or sometimes we went to cafes that had generators and internet connectivity. Each week or sometimes every two weeks, we trained from two to three women. In this way we finished our ultimate goal to train 200 Yemeni women in blogging.

EWAMT: Women In Protest

Rezwan — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 20:52:39 +0000

The recent wave of uprisings in the Middle East And North Africa has also hit Yemen. In January this year thousands of Yemenis started demonstrating in the capital Sanaa and elsewhere demanding resignation of president Ali Abdulla Saleh, who has been in power for more than 30 years. Military crackdowns on protesters followed in many cities which killed a number of people and wounded many (read the Global Voices Special Coverage for details). The notable thing is that more and more women protesters have joined the demonstrations.

Woman protests against the government at Sana'a University. Image by Giulio Petrocco. Copyright Demotix.

Ghaida'a al Absi from the Rising Voices grantee ‘Empowerment of Women Activists in Media Techniques (EWAMT)‘ from Yemen has this update:

There is thousands of Yemeni demonstrating in Yemen everyday. There has been more than a month of protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in the power for 33 years. Thousand of people in Taiz,Ibb,Sana’a Aden…etc are demanding the departure of the president. From Time to Time, the president supporters, and thugs shot fire on the protestors, and causing death.

The beauty of what is going on in Yemen is that the first time to see such an organize demonstration in Yemen. For instance, it is not allowed for the protestors to carry a weapon especially that most of the Yemenis are armed. They have medical camp, Media camp, and camp for discussions. In addition, They have put the strongest men and tribes on the first line of demonstrations next line is for the other youth, and women.

She provides videos of the Friday massacre where 52 protesters were killed and more than 200 were injured.

The members of EWAMT project share there experiences about the uprising. Kholoud at Ambitious project writes:

The winds of revolution and change are moving from country to country and this time from Tunisia it went to Egypt and now is on its way to Libya, Bahrain and our Yemen close to the breathing winds of revolution to be saturated by the lungs of looking forward to freedom, pride and revolt against the corruption. All those who want to say Enough .. we are fed up with bright and false promises .. We want a radical change among all the leaders that became synonymous with corruption, injustice and arrogance on the citizen .. People are fed up with vampires and their race and their efforts to fill their needs and personal assets … (machine translation)

Here is a video showing the repressions by the security forces on the demonstrators:

Ebtisam Al-Mohmmdy at Yemeni Notes writes:

Soon in Yemen, noted that the protesters wanting freedom are women campaigners in the face of dictatorship, oppression and tyranny …[..] these women did not retreat even one step back, despite threats of attacks[..] I could not go out during the last period to participate in demonstrations demanding to bring down the system and bring about a change in the government system in the country but from Almukd heard that opportunity is coming, God willing. [..] Victory for the People of Yemen ……. victory for women struggling. (machine translation)

It may be noted here that Yemeni blogger and journalist received threats for her role in the protests.

Nabiha Kadiri expresses herself in a poem [ar] while discussing about the uprising.

A recent report in Yemen Observer recognizes the rise of Yemeni bloggers, especially women, who are making their voices heard and expressing controversial views that could not be expressed elsewhere.

Rising Voices: 2010 In Review

Rezwan — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 19:57:27 +0000

2010 was an eventful year for Rising Voices and its community. Théophile Kouamouo, one of Francophone Africa's leading bloggers and the project leader of the Rising Voices grantee Abidjan Blog Camps, had been arrested for publishing a newspaper report and was released after spending two weeks in prison. HiperBarrio from Colombia won the First Community Journalism Award given by Antioquia University in the category of Best Community Web platform.

The community bade farewell to the outgoing Director of Outreach, David Sasaki and welcomed the new Director Eduardo Ávila.

This year Rising Voices, in collaboration with the Heinrich Böll Foundation, awarded microgrant funding of up to €2500 to three Egyptian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to train citizen media to underrepresented groups in Egypt so that they can voice their opinions.

Now let us look at some of the notable news of the grantees community we featured in the Rising Voices website in 2010.

Featured Bloggers:

Throughout the year we interviewed bloggers from different Rising Voices projects and here is a list of those features.

Shinetsetseg (Shinee) Sukhbaatar

Shinetsetseg (Shinee) Sukhbaatar from Nomad Green Project in Mongolia
Olzod Boum-Yalagch from Nomad Green Project in Mongolia
Saki Golafale from Ceasefire Liberia project in Liberia
Nat Nyuan-Bayjay from Ceasefire Liberia project in Liberia
Nora Catalina Urquijo from HiperBarrio project in Colombia
Yesenia Corrales from HiperBarrio project in Colombia
Edgar Andres Yana Lisme from Voces Boliviana in Bolivia
Getutza from Blogging The Dreams Project in Romania
Tahina Rakotomanarivo from FOKO in Madagscar
Ahmed Awadalla from Exploring Taboos project in Egypt
Randa AbulDahab from the Women of Minya Day by Day project in Egypt
Sara Abd Al-Maktari from the Empowerment of Women Activists in Media Techniques (EWMAT) project in Yemen
Award Winning OLPC (XO) laptops Bloggers from Uruguay - Part 1, Part 2

The New Grantees Of 2010:

Barcamps And Conferences:

Otgonsuren Jargal presenting Nomad Green at the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2010 in Chile. Image by Krzysztof Pawliszak/GV. CC BY

The Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2010 took place in May at Santiago Public Library in the capital of Chile. Four Rising Voices projects were presented during the two days of the summit. Here is a two part report (Part 1, Part 2) highlighting the presentations and the reactions from the members who attended the conference.

Photo of Catalina Restrepo speaking at BarCamp Santa Cruz. Photo used with permission by BarCampSCZ.

Catalina Restrepo of the HiperBarrio project in Medellín, Colombia was invited to speak at BarCamp Santa Cruz, Bolivia in January. The event also featured Hugo Miranda of Voces Bolivianas from Bolivia.

This year members of HiperBarrio were invited to the Campus Party in Colombia and was told to do something different, use the pin hole camera technique to record the activities of CampusBlog.

Contests:

In February the Best Of Malagasy Blogs (BOMBS) 2009 awards were announced. Several bloggers from FOKO, the Rising Voices grantee in Madagascar, won the awards.

Empowerment Of Women:

With the help of a Rising Voices microgrant, the project “Empowerment of Women Activists in Media Techniques” is teaching blogging to female politicians, activists, and human right workers in Yemen to bring them in global conversation.

Ghaida'a Al Absi, the project leader, says: “EWAMT project is like a candle with other candles, which are lighting up the darkness in Yemen.”

Blogger Ahmad Awadalla of “Exploring Taboos” project conducts sexuality education workshops in Egypt and wrote about discussions about the topic of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) with his students.

Language:

Ruben Hilary of Voces Bolivianas project, with some local volunteers of El Alto, Bolivia, established the virtual community Jaqi Aru. The goal of the Jaqi Aru website is highlighting and spreading Aymara language in internet through creation of digital media contents, which involves translation, use of multimedia and social media tools.

Culture, Travel And Lifestyle:

Bus shaped balloon at the Festival de globos de La Loma 2010

The citizen journalists of the Rising Voices grantee Hiperbarrio shared some photos and videos of the Balloon festival of La Loma (Festival de globos de La Loma 2010).

Nine citizen journalists from Nomad Green in Mongolia visited Taiwan to learn more about Taiwan's social and environmental issues and local cultures and receive citizen media training.

Sustainability:

Hiperbarrio from Colombia finally got its legal identity this year as a nonprofit corporation. This allows the organization to continue to grow as they can be hired by public and private institutions for outreach activities. According to an agreement between the EPM Foundation Network and HiperBarrio from Colombia, citizen media outreach activities in 3 new communities in 3 libraries of Medellín (Villatina, La Esperanza and EPM) were started in 2010.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation awarded Ceasefire Liberia project a $10,000 grant to start a new arm called Ceasefire. This project will focus on creating a citizen media project for African immigrant and African-American youth in Staten Island based on the Ceasefire Liberia model.

Thanks to the bloggers of the different projects of Rising Voices we could read many stories from Liberia, Madagascar, Ivory Coast, Mongolia, Romania, Colombia, Yemen, Republic of Congo, Egypt, Kenya, Bolivia, Ukraine, Uruguay, etc. Some Rising Voices bloggers also participated in and contributed for the Blog Action Day 2010 and the One Day On Earth initiatives. We hope to continue hearing from them. The ‘Introduction to Global Citizen Media Guide' has been translated in Macedonian and Albanian.

We wish the members of the Rising Voices Community and our readers a happy and prosperous 2011.

Featured Blogger: Sara Abd Al-Maktari

Eddie Avila — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 22:08:28 +0000

Participants of blogging workshops often feel the need to spread what they have learned to others. This ripple effect also took place in Yemen and the Rising Voices grantee project Empowerment of Women Activists in Media Techniques (EWMAT). One of the participants decided to take on a more active role in the project because of her firsthand experiences learning about new media. Originally from the city of Ta'izz, Sara Abd Al-maktari [ar] is a 21 year-old English and Computer Studies student at Sanaa University, who took part in the first workshops about blogging offered by EWMAT. Soon after, she offered her assistance to take the training to more young women.

Photo of Sara leading one of the workshops in Sanaa

The skills that she acquired from those sessions convinced her that more young women should learn more about participatory media tools. So she volunteered to lead some workshops in early October 2010 that attracted 12 young women to learn about new media. Her experiences as a trainee helped her once it came time to be on the other side as a trainer. In an interview with Rising Voices, Sara said:

When I train, I gain a lot of skills. One of them is how to deal with the trainees and how to be patient because it really is not easy. It gave me more confidence because I can't forget the information to give to the participants. There is a big difference between being a participant and being a trainer with EWAMT. When I was a participant, I was only looking for information, but when I am a trainer it is a big responsibility…I learned to be very patient.

The founder of the EWAMT, Ghaida'a Al-Absi recognizes Sara's leadership skills and has high hopes for her in the future:

Sara is one of the EWAMT project's success stories. Without EWAMT, she would not be a trainer in new media, and many other girls would not have the knowledge of new media. Sara is an asset to EWAMT, and she is a role model for other women wanting to master new media. Sara is ambitious and has the ability to gather women around her. She has a clear vision, and I am sure that one day she will be an important woman in Yemen.

It is this type of impact that can be seen in other Rising Voices projects. Learning how to open a blog and publish his or her own voice on the internet is often a very powerful realization, and he or she believes that more individuals would want to learn about these tools. Sara adds why this is so important for her country:

I think these kinds of trainings are so important, especially in Yemen because a lot of people don't know anything about blogging and we do not have many of those trainings. We need them to talk about our ideas, talents, and our culture in a simple way. We must connect with the information revolution. Social networking and blogging are a part of that revolution.

EWAMT: The Start Of The 2nd Phase In Taizz City

Rezwan — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:24:35 +0000

We reported earlier that the Risiing Voices grantee ‘Empowerment of Women Activists in Media Techniques (EWAMT)‘ from Yemen has trained 112 female activists in citizen media tools in 10 workshops. The first phase has been completed with success of having 24 active bloggers. The news of the completion was reported by a local news agency Almotamar.net.

On March 3, 2010 Wednesday EWAMT organized a certificate awarding ceremony at Al-Afefe Foundation in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen. The project leader Ghaida'a Al Absi reports:

We talked about a success story of one of the bloggers, that she got an invitation to participate in Women’s Leadership in Technology in Al-Sharja. However, she could not go there because her family won’t allow her to travel alone.

At the end, we distributed the certificates, and the eyes of the new bloggers were shining.

Taizz city. Image Via Google Map

Now the good news is that the second phase of the EWAMT project started in Taizz city, a major city in Yemen located at the southwestern highlands at an altitude of 1500 meters above sea level. It is located at the foothill of Saber Mountain (3070 meters) and has a dramatic setting where the roads run up and down the mountain sides. Here is a video of the city [ar]:

From an article published in the EWAMT project blog, we learn about the start of the 2nd phase:

In Partnership with the National Culture Center for Youth, we trained 15 ladies on 31 March- April 1st 2010 in Taiz City. Most of the trainees were volunteers at the center, and the other were volunteers in HIV projects. It was the first time for them to hear about social networking term. In the first day we talked about the history of blogging, and they started to create accounts in blogger. In the next day, We continued the blogging. Then we discussed about google maping, Wiki, and Facebook.

In the first phase participant's group blog Thoughts of the Yemenis, Ebtisam Al-Mohmmdy writes about the traits of many Yemenis at home, which consists of apathy and dependency on others and they show lower morale and ethics. However, when Yemenis go abroad, they become hard working and law abiding moral citizens. Al-Mohmmdy writes:

I wonder, should they not treat Yemen with love and patriotism, and sacrifice .. [..] … I hope to find an answer.

EWAMT: 112 Yemeni Women Received Citizen Media Training

Rezwan — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:54:43 +0000

The Rising Voices grantee ‘Empowerment of Women Activists in Media Techniques‘ has taken big strides in training new media tools to female politicians, activists, and human right workers of Yemen. The project leader Ghaida'a Al Absi reports that the first phase of the project has been completed. In spite of technical challenges like frequent electricity outages and slow internet, the project so far trained 112 female bloggers surpassing the target of 100 participants in ten workshops.

The last workshop on the 25th of January drew 20 participants. These girls are not only eager to learn, they are asking a lot of questions. Fathi al-Dhafri, the trainer of a previous workshop (24 December, 2009) noted:

“training girls is tiring because they are asking a lot, and want to learn everything at the same time.“

Ghaida'a explains:

This is true because of the social pressure on women; they are trying to prove themselves through getting a higher education and gaining new skills. For example, the rate of success among girls in the secondary education is higher than among boys.

The project was also featured in the 14th October newspaper. Bashir, the journalist who visited a workshop quoted Ghaida'a:

She pointed out that the second phase of the project will commence in February next explained that the project is for women only on the grounds that the number of women professionals in this aspect is very small compared with the number of young people who operate extensively in this aspect.

A certificate distribution ceremony for active bloggers will take place in February. The first edition of Tadween Magazine will also be published.

Ghaida'a lists the plans for the second phase:

1- Train 88 ladies in blogging and social networking

2- Train 20 ladies in the art of writing

3- publish the second edition of Tadween magazine.

4- Make two workshops in two other localities.

Below is a glimpse of what some of the bloggers are writing about:

Bee at Small Bee blog writes on freedom:

Freedom is not a decree issued by Parliament, it is made in us. It is the way we think and the way we feel and the means by opening our hearts to a new sense of our minds and wake up a creative idea. The most serious threats to our freedom is not .. Prison …. But the gallows in the depths of our concern.. fear of failure. (machine translation)

Yemen Al Saeed at Happy Yemen discusses about the role of women in Yemeni society in historical and present times.

“Do we make life for ourselves or others?” asks Hanan Attia.

Make a difference by posting your comment writes about the torments of life and about hope at the end of the tunnel.

Kholoud at Ambitious project wishes the success of the London conference.

Out of the 112 bloggers trained, 24 of them are now active. Here is a list of those bloggers which you can follow.

EWAMT: Candle In The Dark - The Women Bloggers Of Yemen

Rezwan — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 20:52:41 +0000

Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian of Yemeni Arab descent, has caused much media attention because of his attempted bomb attack on a flight to USA. Another shocking revelation was Abdulmutallab's conviction that he was trained by AL-Qaeda in Yemen and there are many others in Yemen planning to bring down American jets.

The mainstream media is filled with all these news along with stereotypes but they rarely portray what the common people of Yemen are thinking about. There are not many options to get those perspectives.

Women activists in Yemen - 8th Workshop. November 2009

Here we look at some of the participant's recent posts:

Aisha at Life Blog wishes these in a poem:

I reiterate once again to say that we must be very fair with our children ..
And they get all their rights ..
Because what awaits them after a few years .. will be painful at best ..

Drew drops writes about mistreatment of children and urges the readers in her post.

Kholoud at Ambitious Project talks about East-West relationship. The blogger ponders on the efforts of some Western countries to ban nuclear proliferation in the Middle east whereas those countries do not start banning their own to stay in the balance.

Abeer Aeriqi writes about her study and life and rediscovers her through work.

Here is a list of more blogs to follow.

On Thursday 12th of November 2009 the eighth workshop took place with 12 trainees. The project leader Ghaida'a Al Absi informs:

At the end of the workshop, we discussed some topics such as freedom of speech, sexual harassment in Yemen. Talking about freedom of speech in Yemen leads you to sensitive position with the government, so we were talking about it with fear of the existence of spies.

Yemeni activists discussing

Ghaida'a says: “EWAMT project is like a candle with other candles, which are lighting up the darkness in Yemen.” We hope that with more blogs and more active conversations the darkness will disappear sooner rather than later.

Interview with Ghaida'a Al Absi

David Sasaki — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:21:09 +0000

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Ghaida'a al-Absi is the leader of Empowerment of Women Activists in Media Techniques in Yemen, which provides digital media training courses to Yemeni women activists. You can see photos from their training sessions on Flickr. Rezwan recently wrote about their latest workshop on using social networking platforms to advance their advocacy campaigns.

EWAMT: Blogging And Social Networking Energize Women In Yemen

Rezwan — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:18:14 +0000

EWAMT 7th workshop participants

Napoleon Bonaparte once said: “let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.” The same is true for every nation. One can hope that the Rising Voices grantee from Yemen ‘Empowerment of Women Activists in Media Techniques (EWAMT)' can make such impact. Ghaida'a al-Absi in collaboration with the Hand in Hand Initiative is organizing new media training course for female politicians, activists, and human right workers of Yemen to bring more women's voices to the internet and empower them. She shares an interesting experience gathered during the seventh workshop of the project:

On Thursday 15 October, 2009 we hold a workshop on blogging and social networking for ten activists. These activists were really talkative and full of energy. It is like a magic, every time you train new women activists, you got some energy from them.

Sadiq al-Samawi introducing Facebook

The day-long workshop anchored by Ghaida'a included tips like how to blog via email and in the afternoon session Sadiq al-Samawi taught the participants how to use facebook.

Now let us look at some of the blog posts published by the participants of the 7th workshop.

Safa writes about an important issue - the spread of drug abuse in Yemen.

Smile To Life discusses the shocking spread of AIDS and how to raise awareness to prevent this disease.

Dove creativity posts a poem called ‘silent heart‘.

Lafraaaaacp adventure defines love:

Love is when all your interest is about the happiness of your beloved without thinking of yourself.

Sarah loves the children stories and drawings and wishes to post about these.

Meanwhile here are snippets from the blogs of some of the participants of the previous workshops:

Pearl, who writes at Shells blog talks about how a women is forced to do something she does not want because she is deemed weaker in the society. She screams:

“Why don't you understand that we have the right to choose.”

Kholoud at Ambitious Project mentions about another kind of rape:

Image courtesy Kholoud
There are raped ideas .. raped success .. and even raped feelings .. usurpation of land and other types of rape. The most hideous of this is the rape of innocence .. the rape of children. Children raped and stripped from all their rights..
The right to play
To learn
To a dignified life and secure … and are locked up in a dark cave, which is located on the sidelines of life
Simply because they are created only to find themselves living a hard life.

Abeer Aeriqi shares a story how it feels betrayed by your sibling. She also posts an interesting story which has the morale that “we always suffer from severe emotional stupidity, which makes us judge things wrong.”

Eman shares the thoughts of an unsuccessful love and whether people should try over and over before giving up hope on love.

The list of participants' blogs of the EWAMT project can be found in this site.

EWAMT: Joining The Global Conversation

Rezwan — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:52:37 +0000

On the 12th of August Empowerment of Women Activists in Media Techniques (EWAMT), the Rising Voices grantee from Yemen, participated in a fair arranged by an NGO called Youth of Leadership for Development Foundation. EWAMT project leader Ghadia'a al-absi writes about it:

We have noticed the young men were interested in this project, and wondered why they are excluded from joining this project. In this event we extended our contacts, also we knew that EWAMT project is popular among other NGOs and youth initiatives.

We have distributed the EWAMT brochures, and made a video about Hand in Hand Initiative activities including EWAMT project.

The Yemeni society is very conservative and it is deeply rooted in its culture and traditions. You will see most Yemeni women wearing the black “Abaya” or “Sharshaf” (veils) and many of them prefer to stay inside the house. However women are allowed to drive and vote in Yemen. You can find women as teachers, nurses, doctors, businesswomen and journalists. Here in this video (uploaded in Dotsub by Pangea) you will see how much courage a women has to show to break the taboos of women in Yemeni society:

And the women participants of Rising Voices project EWAMT are taking bold steps to join in the conversation of equal rights and empowerment of women. Here in the EWAMT Facebook page, a discussion was initiated by instructor Jamal Nasser Al-Hanesh about the relationship of men and women in Yemen. He talks about issues like the frequent exploitation of women and deception by men and whether this is responsible for the lack of trust on men by women.

Abeer Aeriqi, who blogs at Pearl, joins the discussion saying that the men are deceptive, this message is printed in a girl's mind so the fear is normal.

Kholoud opines that it is the duty of the girl to be careful of the treachery of men. The blogger suggests the women to exercise restraint in a relation but not be afraid of men.

EWAMT Workshop Participants

Pearl writes in her Shells blog:

By pearl I mean every Yemeni woman who try to be stronger and overcome all difficulties that she face. Shells are the environment around the pearl as family (father, mother, brothers, sisters and husband) some times this shell doesn't have a flexibility so this lead to damaging of the very fine pearl but even those pearls try to have her own identity and personality whatever happen. Sea is the society which also some time make restriction on the pearl, ocean is the whole world.

So all of these things around the little pearl. Is she lucky or poor? what can she do to deal with all of these things?

She asks people to comment in her blog on this issue.

Soad atFriendship blog discusses ways to choose friends.

The EWAMT bloggers are also discussing other important issues that concern the contemporary Yemeni society.

Rahaf at Sense blog writes about the new method of beggary by employing children. Street children draw more compassion from people and that is why they are prone to exploitation by professional beggars. Aisha thinks that poverty is the main enemy of the children. However, Kholoud opines that:

Street children and the prevalence of child labor .. Is not the result of poverty or poor living conditions and economic situation, but it is in my opinion, reflect a clear picture of the problem of our identity because of the social disintegration and lack of human ties among its members.

In his opinion, this can be overcome if everyone in the community choose to help others.

Jumana describes what is forgiveness:

It is the act of letting go of the past. Forgetting the past. Moving on as if it never happened.

People hurt people everyday, they cause them a lot of pain without even realizing it. Why is that? Why are we focusing on “expressing ourselves” regardless of how it's going to make our loved ones feel. Why are we such control freaks? Why is it that we don't know how to express ourselves without hurting each other? Isn't it time we thought about different ways and approaches?

It's about time we considered each other's well being. It's about time we watched our tongues and spoke only what we've thoroughly thought about. It's about time we stopped causing each other pain and hurt.

Hopeful dreams of a romantic Yemen.

Here are some pictures from the 4th training workshop which took place in early July.

Ghaida'a al_Absi informs that Yemen is suffering from a lot of problems recently, the major ones include, power outages, Internet connection outages. The project scheduled an workshop for 9 trainees in 19-20 August, 2009. The proceedings of the first day was delayed because of a power outage (and lack of generator). The following day the Internet connection was unavailable for a long time, so the workshop had to be postponed till Thursday 27 August, 2009.

We hope that EWAMT will overcome these challenges and bring more Yemeni women in the global conversation which will help them empower themselves.