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Summer 2006 Program Highlights

LATIN AMERICA

Women's Health and Reproductive Rights

• GUATEMALA: Together with our partner, the Barcenas Maquila (sweatshop) Workers' Committee, MADRE supported three health fairs in Barcenas, Villa Nueva, and Las Morenas (a community devastated by mudslides in October 2005). The initiative provided more than 100 women with pap smears for early detection of cervical cancer and vaccinated dozens of children. In January, a delegation of MADRE members delivered donations of books and school and art supplies to the MADRE-supported Children's Book Corner in Barcenas, an underserved, unplanned community on the outskirts of Guatemala City.
• NICARAGUA: MADRE member support provided a fetal doppler and ultrasound system to our sister organization, CADAMUC clinic. The portable equipment enables a mobile clinic team to bring crucial prenatal care to women in remote communities along the Coco River.

Indigenous Peoples' Rights

• PERU: For the second year, MADRE and our sister organization, CHIRAPAQ, organized a one-month sculpture workshop for Indigenous youth from impoverished rural communities. The workshop, which was taught by a sculptor who is as committed to human rights as she is to sculpting, gave the young participants a rare opportunity for creative self-expression and recognition. Their work was exhibited at a local gallery in a ceremony that was attended by hundreds of community members. MADRE also sent a radio producer and technical advisor to provide support to Voices for Justice. The broadcast is part of the MADRE-supported Human Rights Radio Project in Ayacucho, a media-training and empowerment initiative by and for Indigenous women.

Food Security and Sustainable Development

• NICARAGUA: MADRE's Harvesting Hope program distributed chickens to 30 women, along with training in poultry management and material to build fencing. Our sister organization, Wangki Tangni, also provided more than 1,000 seed packets and training in sustainable farming, marketing, and seed-bank management to more than a dozen families.

AFRICA

Education as a Human Right

• KENYA: Together with our partner, the Indigenous Information Network, MADRE supports a school in the women-run community of Umoja. The only source of early-childhood education in the area, the school offers children a creative environment in which to learn and play. It promotes education as a basic human right of nomadic, pastoral peoples and greatly improves children's prospects for attending and succeeding in primary school. The school also hosts educational programs for community women. MADRE's Helping Hands program recently delivered books, art materials, and games to the Umoja School.

MIDDLE EAST

War and Violence Against Women

• IRAQ: In response to the upsurge in violence against women that has accompanied the US invasion, MADRE has enabled our partner, the Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), to open a network of women's shelters. Most recently, MADRE supported the opening of a sixth women's shelter, in Baghdad. And MADRE raised support for urgently needed supplies, food, clothing, and doctors, counselors, and teachers to help the women at the shelters heal—physically and emotionally—and begin to rebuild their lives on a stronger foundation. To protect the women who seek refuge at the shelters, each facility is hidden behind walls in a secret location protected by guards. And it's not only the women fleeing abuse who are in danger. OWFI women who work at the shelters have been harrassed and have received death threats from religious extremists who have assassinated dozens of Iraqi women for being "collaborators against Islam." Because of the grave danger, we cannot publish any photographs of shelter staff or activities at the shelters. But we want to assure you that these are vibrant, well-cared-for places. And thanks to MADRE member support, they are literally saving lives.

ASIA

Emergency Relief

• PAKISTAN: NEW SISTER ORGANIZATION! The Shirkat Gah Women's Resource Center works in communities in Pakistan and at the United Nations for women's legal equality in Pakistan, women's economic and reproductive rights, and development strategies that are equitable, sustainable, and environmentally sound. In the wake of the Pakistan earthquake in October 2005, MADRE support enabled Shirkat Gah to provide hundreds of families with food and medical supplies. Shirkat Gah established nearly 300 emergency shelters with MADRE support and delivered baby bottles, blankets, and warm clothing to infants and children who arrived at relief camps wrapped in nothing but plastic sheeting.
• SRI LANKA: MADRE recently sent support to our Sri Lankan sister organization, INFORM, to provide food and clothing to women and families whose homes were destroyed by the 2004 tsunami. MADRE support also provides counseling and cultural programs for displaced families and training for women to ensure that reconstruction efforts are carried out equitably and that community women are involved in all decisions that affect them.