Saturday, March 14, 2015

Dina Shehata_Blog 14

Last Day of CSW!

Yesterday was a bittersweet day. It was our last day here at CSW and we ended with a Broadway show.

The events that I attended yesterday were very insightful and allowed me to learn more about several different issues ranging in maternity health to Islam and its relation to women’s rights.

The event I’m going to focus on for this blog is the “Strategic Leadership for Women and Girls’ Health: The Beyond Zero Campaign in Kenya.  The first lady of Kenya was the keynote speaker and she outlined the campaign she created called Beyond Zero. There are three goals of the campaign and they are the following:

1. Improve Maternal Health 
2.  Reduce Child Mortality
3. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and other Diseases

The goals of this campaign are such significant issues and for the first lady to be proactive and become successful in accomplishing these goals is a great feat especially when countries all over the world have similar issues but fail to even plan campaigns.

Another issue that motivated the creation of Beyond Zero is the problem of women in rural areas giving birth in their homes which increases complications and risks.  There are mobile units going around these areas that perform deliveries. One of the panelists said something very important. She said “No woman should die while giving birth.”

The other panelists had several statistics that showed the true positive effects of Kenya’s efforts:

26% of Kenya’s Parliament is comprised of women.

30% of Kenya’s cabinet is comprised of women.

One moment during the session was very great to witness. A young Kenyan girl, who is only 15 years old, raised her hand to make a comment at the end. She was confident and poised. She stated that first and foremost, education is a priority for girls and women. She then proceeded to bring a bracelet symbolizing the fight for education and equality to the first lady of Kenya and put it on her arm. This moment illustrated the capability and significance of the youth. We need to listen to the younger generations because they have a lot to offer!

CSW has been an eye-opening experience and I am so thankful that I was able to be a part of it. I learned that there are so many amazing advocates out there and we need to find a way to take all of the issues we talked about and really IMPLEMENT them. Every session I attended had problems with implementation.

See you all back in NC!


Dina Shehata

1 comment:

  1. Congratulations to Kenya for having education as a priority for women and girls. I hope that is true for all. And good for Kenya for having an unusually large amount of women's political leadership. It is impressive. But, as long as women are 50% or so of the population, our leadership positions should match that percentage, or get close to it!

    Glad you enjoyed the Fellowship, and especially the time in NY. It's great you were able to take advantage of the opportunity. Sounds like you made good session choices. Welcome back to NC--yes we need to get working on implementing those solutions.

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