A Nuisance is Born

Today in 1819 Juana Manso was baptized in Buenos Aires.

The holy waters were to set her on the path to meekness, but Juana Manso was never meek.

Bucking wide and tide she founded secular schools in Argentina and Uruguay where girls and boys studied together, religion was not a required course and corporal punishment was banned.

She wrote the first textbook on Argentine history plus several other works, among them a novel that derided the hypocrisy of married life.

She founded the first public library in the country’s interior.

She got divorced when divorce did not exist.

The Buenos Aires papers took great pleasure in mocking her.

When she died, the church refused her a tomb.

~Eduardo Galeano, Children of the Days

Day of the African Child - June 16th

In 1976, thousands of black school children took to the streets of Soweto, South Africa. In a march more than half a mile long, they protested the inferior quality of their education and demanded their right to be taught in their own language. Hundreds of young boys and girls were shot down by security forces. In the two weeks of protest that followed, more than a hundred people were killed and more than a thousand were injured.

To honour the memory of those killed and the courage of all those who marched, the Day of the African Child has been celebrated on 16 June every year since 1991, when it was first initiated by the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union).

The Day also draws attention to the lives of African children today. The theme for this year's event is Eliminating Harmful Social and Cultural Practices Affecting Children: Our Collective Responsibility. In their concept note on this year's celebration, the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child selected this theme to "call attention to harmful social and cultural practices against children, and highlight the roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders." Aims of the Day include:

• highlighting the negative consequences of harmful practices (such as female genital mutilation) on the various rights of children;
• urging the review of existing legislative and policy frameworks and practices at the national level to combat and eliminate harmful practices against children;
• undertaking advocacy with African governments, civil society organizations including faith based organizations, the media, and other role players for greater mobilization for the realization of the rights of children against harmful practices; and
• considering effective strategies for the prevention of harmful practices against children.

THIS YEAR Rallies are being scheduled around the world in conjunction with Day of the African Child and #BringBackOurGirls

JOIN US: June 16th for International Day of the African Child by ORGANIZING marches, vigils and rallies around the world in honor of the Chibok girls. SPREAD THE MESSAGE: Let us use this day to honor the 300 girls that were kidnapped. Let us use this day to tell the world that we will not stop until they are rescued.

For more information, see the Bring Back Our Girls Facebook Page

Sources: UNICEF, ChildFund, dayoftheafricanchild.org

Selected learning materials
Child Trafficking and Sexual ExploitationOne of four modules developed by the Child Labor Research Initiative of the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights (Iowa, USA), this module contains four highly flexible and adaptable lesson plans appropriate for high school students. Teachers can teach a lesson within 1-2 class periods to introduce the subject or fully integrate the materials into the classroom throughout the year.
Our Homes, Our Lives, Ourselves: A Fun Book to Help Young People Get the Issues Right Concerning Women in Human Settlements DevelopmentA booklet intended to help teenagers get an idea what it is like to be a woman. They do this by reading, thinking and investigating the role of women in various ways. The booklet includes a board game ('The Game of Life') and sections on finance, land, information, networking, and the environment.
Study Guide on the Rights of Children & YouthThis guide introduces the main issues, international standards and protection mechanisms to protect and promote the human rights of children and youth.

International treaties on children's rights:

Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)

Simplified version of the Convention on the Rights of the Child

The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1999)

 

Day of the African Child (organisation)

Shared from hrea.org

What is your Dream? #BubblesBeyondBorders

On August 16th, millions of women and girls from around the world will gather together in their local communities for the radical act of naming and claiming their own dreams.

From South Africa to The United States, from Bahrain to Australia - we are planning rallies all over the world, with the goal of having gatherings in every major city.

Join individuals, organisations and activists who will take to the streets on August 16th at 1pm local time to blow bubbles for a powerful purpose – to pledge an action in support of girls and women’s rights and dreams around the world.

• the right to respect
• the right to an innocent childhood
• the right to an education
• the right to express themselves
• the right to independence 
• the right to choose their own partners
• the right to equal pay
• the right to protection under the law
• the right to vote, and participate in government

Bubbles Beyond Borders is a global campaign to support the dreams of women around the world. Please get involved and help us take this to the next level!

To become a team leader in your state or province, contact Bubbles Beyond Borders. 

You can participate NOW by taking a photo of yourself or your daughter, granddaughter, deice and/or friends blowing bubbles with a short written description of your dreams and your location. Post them at Bubbles Beyond Borders.

Please support our work by sharing posts using the hashtag #bubblesbeyondborders and liking the Facebook page. There is also a list of things you can do to help.

Please share this post with every woman you know!

From the Stake to the Altar

On this day in 1431, a nineteen-year-old girl was burned alive in the old marketplace in Rouen.

She climbed the scaffold wearing an enormous cap, which said:

Heretic,

Recidivist,

Apostate,

Idolatress.

After she was burned to death, her body was thrown from a bridge into the Seine, so the waters would carry her far away.

She had been condemned by the Catholic Church and the Kingdom of France.

Her name was Joan of Arc.

Heard of her?

~Eduardo Galeano, Children of the Days

Sister Joan Chittister on "The Role of Archives in a Changing World."

"We stand deprived of twelve centuries of history that men take for granted, claim as their glory, count as their success, and consider must be our models, too.

And why? Because no one kept the archives of women–of the other half, the disdained half, the scorned and disparaged half of the human race.

Where were the archivists then who would judge such a history valuable, notable, necessary at least to the intellectual integrity of the male writing and research of the rest of the human enterprise?

To this day, as women Benedictines we know nothing of our histories, our great leaders, our dreams, our devastations, or our centuries-old learnings about what it means to be either spiritual or alive as independent spiritual women. We know only that they were there–and gone–and made invisible."- Sister Joan Chittister on "The Role of Archives in a Changing World."

Read her entire speech at PSU here.

Someone else’s debt

On this day in 1948 the state of Israel was born.

Within a few months, more than eight hundred thousand Palestinians had been deported and more than five hundred of their villages had been turned into rubble.

Those villages, where olive, fig, almond and other fruit trees grew, now lie buried under highways, shopping malls and amusement parks. They are dead and unnamed on the map rechiristened by the Government Names Committee.

Not much of Palestine is left. The two thousand years of persecution suffered by the Jewish people was invoked to justify this implacable gluttony, complete with property titles granted by the Bible.

Persecuting Jews had always been a European sport. Now the Palestinians are paying the bill.

~Eduardo Galeano, Children of the Days

Photo by Hamde Abu Rahma

We know how HIStory counts - how will HERstory count?

"History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, as though the one had never existed." —Szymborska