Women's Views on News |
| Twin your toilet: make girls safer Posted: 25 Nov 2016 01:58 PM PST
That’s 2.4 billion people, to be more precise. Not having a loo puts people at risk of being bitten by snakes as they squat in the grass and makes women and girls a target for sexual assault as they go to the toilet in the open. And every minute, a child under the age of five dies because of dirty water and poor sanitation. The Toilet Twinning project raises funds to provide safe latrines, clean water and hygiene education in some of the poorest nations, by inviting people to twin their own loo with a latrine abroad. By twinning your toilet, you help those in desperate poverty to have access to a proper latrine, clean water and the information they need to be healthy. Your smallest room becomes the proud owner of a certificate, complete with a colour photo of its twin and GPS coordinates so you can look up your twin on Google Maps. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bawili is a widow who lost everything because of civil war. And the lack of proper water and a decent toilet caused her family great problems. But when the community came together to help Bawili and her children and provided them with toilet facilities, everything changed. “My daughter was attacked because we didn't have a toilet. Having a loo is a big relief for the whole family,” she explained. Manchester students' big push to flush away poverty earned them a top toilet accolade – as they become the first Toilet Twinned College in the UK. Loreto Sixth Form College in Hulme was presented with the Toilet Twinning award earlier this year, in recognition of their tireless efforts to fund latrines in poor countries. Over the course of three fundraising drives since 2011, Loreto staff and students have raised more than £9,000 in total – enough to provide toilets for more than 150 families. Soroptimists International Dundee galvanised Dundonians across the city to twin the toilets at home, school and work – and in total, more than 80 Toilet Twinning certificates are being hung with pride in toilets in Dundee – and more than £7,000 has been donated to Toilet Twinning's international work. This has won Dundee the accolade of being Scotland's first Toilet Twinned City. The Isle of Man today became the world's first Toilet Twinned Island in March this year. A special loo-themed van topped with a toilet made a Toilet Tour of the island – billed as an alternative TT – visiting landmark loos en route, to celebrate Manx campaigners winning this prestigious award. Over the past two years, Islanders have been on a roll, 'twinning' with more than 130 latrines and a school block overseas, through the charity initiative Toilet Twinning. It raises funds to provide proper toilets, clean water and hygiene education in developing countries, by encouraging people in the UK to twin their loo and fund a latrine abroad. And in Northern Ireland, MLAs from the All-Party Group for International Development, along with representatives from the Coalition of Aid and Development Agencies in Northern Ireland, recently marked the official twinning of two toilets at Stormont Assembly with two latrines in Uganda. A 'Spend a Penny' fundraising initiative had encouraged MLAs to donate towards the cost of twinning two of the main toilets in the Great Hall at the Stormont Buildings. Their celebratory event took place shortly after the United Nations’ World Toilet Day on 19 November. Susan Bennett, Toilet Twinning Fundraising Manager, Northern Ireland, said: “One in three people worldwide don't have a toilet. “By providing hygienic toilets we are able to prevent the spread of disease as well as bring dignity and safety to women and girls who no longer have to walk to the edge of their community late at night.” Toilet Twinning is a simple, quirky way to solve a serious problem and save lives. For more information about how it works, click here. To follow us on facebook, click here. |
| Posted: 25 Nov 2016 10:47 AM PST
But what is the significance of this date? And why is it often marked with butterfly logos? On 25 November 1960, three young women who were political activists in the Dominican Republic, known as the Mirabal Sisters, were killed, it is believed, on the orders of Rafael Trujillo the dictator who was head of state of the Dominican Republic from 1930-1961. There were four sisters: Minerva, Maria Teresa, Patria and Dedé. They all married and raised families. At first Dedé mainly focused on the home and farm as her husband did not support her when she wanted to attend college or take part in political activism, although she joined her sisters later. Minerva graduated in law, but her path to practicing law was blocked, allegedly after she rejected Trujillo’s sexual advances. She remained politically active and her sisters Maria Teresa and Patria joined her. Patria was motivated after having witnessed Trujillo's men commit a massacre on 14 June. This later came to be the name given to their group: "The movement of the Fourteenth of June" – but their codename was Las Mariposas – the butterflies. They collated and distributed information on torture, disappearances and extra-judicial killings and started stockpiling weapons for when the revolution would take hold. They and their husbands experienced spells in prison and other harassment. On 25 November 1960 Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa, along with their driver, were stopped by some members of Trujillo's secret police force while they were returning from a visit to their husbands who were at that time in prison. They were beaten and strangled and put back in their vehicle which was then pushed off a mountainside to make it looked as if they had had a car accident. In 1961, the Mirabal sisters' awaited revolution kicked off – and Trujillo, one of the most blood-thirsty dictators Latin America has ever known, was ambushed and killed on 30 May 1961. Dedé – the sister who had not been as politically active – survived Trujillo's reign and raised her late sisters' six children. She died in 2014. The courage of these women, who helped bring freedom and democracy to their country, is now legendary. In the Dominican Republic, the Mirabal sisters are now national heroines and cities, towns, schools and institutions have been named after them. The story of the Mirabal sisters has been told numerous times. Notable American-Dominican author Julia Alvarez wrote about them in her 1994 best-selling novel ‘In the Time of the Butterflies‘. This novel was then the basis for the 2001 film of the same name, starring Salma Hayek, Edward James Olmos and Marc Anthony. In 2010, Michelle Rodriguez starred in ‘Tropico de Sangre‘, another film depicting the lives of the Dominican heroines. And in 2009, Chilean film maker Cecilia Domeyko produced a documentary about the Mirabal Sisters, called Code Name: Butterflies, for which she interviewed family, personalities and friends and gives a recount of the lives of the deceased sisters and their movement to restore democracy in the Dominican Republic. The premise of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is to raise awareness of the fact that women around the world are subject to rape, domestic violence and other forms of violence; furthermore, one of the aims of the day is to highlight that the scale and true nature of the issue is often hidden. In 1981, activists marked 25 November as a day to combat and raise awareness of violence against women more broadly; on 17 December 1999, the date received its official United Nations resolution. The date of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women also marks the start of the “16 Days of Activism” that precede Human Rights Day on 10 December each year. That date was in turn chosen to honour the United Nations General Assembly‘s adoption and proclamation, on 10 December 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first global enunciation of human rights and one of the first major achievements of the new United Nations. |
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