Auteur/autrice : Heidi Barathieu-Brun

Linked with our presentation of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

Cheshmak Farhoumand-Sims is a peace researcher, educator and practitioner completing her PhD studies at York University in Toronto in the Department of Political Science. Cheshmak received an Honours BA in peace and conflict studies from the University of Toronto and a M.Sc. in conflict analysis and resolution from the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where she wrote her Master’s thesis on the subject of the psychological, cultural and religious dimensions of post-conflict reconciliation processes in intractable conflicts. In addition to these degrees, Cheshmak has studied at the Austrian Peace University and the United Nations Graduate Studies Program.

Cheshmak Farhoumand-Sims – Canada & Afghanistan

Cheshmak believes that women play an integral role in the development of their societies and that their absence from public discourse contributes to the stunted growth of the society as a whole. She is interested in exploring how religion and culture are often used to prevent women’s active participation in society and in considering how this impacts peacebuilding and reconstruction efforts. Her dissertation focuses on the relationship between the protection and promotion of women’s human rights and peacebuilding in conflict zones, where religion and culture serve as a barrier to women’s participation, such as the case in Afghanistan. She gained insight into these issues through her research, travels to Afghanistan, and participation at the Commission on the Status of Women, and the meeting of the Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 2001. These experiences provided her with the opportunity to interview Afghan women in Afghanistan, and gender experts within the United Nations at the United Nations Division on the Advancement of Women, UNIFEM and 17 of the 21 experts that sit on the CEDAW committee.

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Linked with our presentation of Tehelka – the people’s paper – India.

And linked with our presentation of For whom the bell tolls.

He said in an interview about his book ‘the alchemy of desire’: (excerpt)  » … yes, the book’s strongest characters are female, and the book is decidedly very pro-female. Personally, I just think women are far, far more interesting than men. It has to do with their immense layering, an emotional ‘nuancing’ that is the creation of millennia of facing up to difficult odds. In comparison, men are almost two dimensional, emotionally and sexually lesser beings. Yes, most of the important people in my life are female — mother, sister, wife, daughters, colleagues, friends. Yes, they are changing — no options: The future belongs to women, but they are changing at too slow a pace. The north, of course, could certainly do with a dramatic behaviour reorientation. Mostly very badly behaved, I have to say …  » (Read the whole interview on this rediff.com page).

Tarun Tejpal – India

TARUN TEJPAL is CEO and editor-in-chief of tehelka, an Web-only news and literary site based in New Delhi — and one of India’s most well-known editors. Since its founding in March 2000, two of the site’s stories have brought it international attention: its investigation of a cricket match-fixing scandal and its sting operation that exposed corruption in the Indian defense establishment.

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She says: “The main innovation that I’ve been pulling together is to start thinking about education as part of a world system rather than as something contained within each nation.”

And: “A school looks like a school almost anywhere you go,” she notes. But while some systems succeed in lifting people out of poverty, other systems do not. She worries about the increasingly skewed global situation: “While it may seem fine if everyone in developing countries gets a primary education, what if everybody in the rich countries gets a university education?” (See boh on IDRC report).

Coming to Canada from the Stanford University USA, she became the chairholder of the Canada Research Chair in Global Governance and Comparative Educational Change, University of Toronto, Tier 2, Social Sciences and Humanities, on October 1, 2002.

Karen E. Mundy – Canada

The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) has designated 24–30 April 2006 as its “Global Action Week” to focus international attention on education as a universal right. It’s a matter close to the heart of IDRC awardee Karen Mundy, a world-renowned scholar of comparative education now based at OISE/University of Toronto.

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Linked with our presentation of NAFDAC, the National Administration for Food, Drug Administration and Control.

Goes with ‘Assuming Authority‘.

She’s been credited with saving millions of lives and with moving mountains with sheer dedication to duty. Undoubtedly the Nigerian woman of 2002, she is the most beloved and most popular public official in Nigeria today. Since taking over this important health sector, she has fought persistently with unsurpassed dedication to sanitize the pushing of fake medications and unclean food items. Nigerians were being poisoned by these fake foods and drugs and someone needed to do something seriously about it. (Read more of this long article on kwenu.com).

Dora Nkem Akunyili – Nigeria

She said: « On why she chose pharmacy as a profession, she said it was destined. Her result in secondary school was the best ever in QRC, Nsukka. « When we were to take JAMB, I never thought of pharmacy but wanted a professional course where I could do a lot of chemistry and mathematics. They were my best subjects and I felt giving them up was like giving up my soul ». Nevertheless, she fell in love with the course. « I did not know that God was actually propelling me to what he really wants me to be and coincidentally, it is actually what I want to do ». (Read more of this long article about her on this day online).

Before Dr. Akunyili took over the running of NAFDAC, the agency had functioned merely as a toothless bulldog, but she has radically transformed it into a fierce fighting force. Her well-publicized war on drug abuse is fought relentlessly and the enemy is resisting with every dirty means available. NAFDAC has won several victories in cities most notorious for fake drugs: Onitsha, Aba, Port Harcourt, and Lagos.

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Linked with our presenttions Why are lessons spurned, rather than learned? Also with UNHCR Should Lead the International Humanitarian Enterprise, and finally with Security Council Reform, Problems and Prospects in September 2005.

He asks: « Is the idea of a forward-looking history an oxymoron or a constructive way of improving the future by learning from past mistakes? According to Professor Thomas G. Weiss, it is not an oxymoron, and « learning from the past may be difficult, but that is no excuse for not trying ». With his leadership, this is exactly what the United Nations Intellectual History Project (UNIHP) has set-out as its goal. As he explains, the project’s research seeks to « stand on the shoulders of past giants in order to confront future challenges, to learn from past successes and failures in order to improve multilateral cooperation in the future ». (Read more on this WFUNA-page).

Thomas G. Weiss – USA

He says: « The United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) is the nation’s largest grassroots foreign policy organization and the leading center of policy research on the UN and global issues. UNA-USA Policy Briefs are intended to provide background and stimulate discussion on issues related to US foreign policy and the work of the UN. For more information, please visit www.unausa.org ». (Read more on UNA-USA).

He is Presidential Professor of Political Science at The CUNY Graduate Center and Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, where he is co-director of the United Nations Intellectual History Project and editor of Global Governance.

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(Excerpt) … Elahe Sharifpour-Hicks, of the New York-based monitoring group Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations Commission for Human Rights says: « Change in all areas has been difficult and the underlying problem is broadly similar. It is not only in the area of women’s equality where we can see a lack of progress. The same can be said of religious freedom and of progress towards a more representative government. » Ms. Sharifpour-Hicks says Iranians will know that change is occurring when women are given equal rights in areas such as child custody, inheritance, and the transmission of citizenship to their children.

Elahe Sharifpour-Hicks – USA & Iran

During a Hearing in the United Kingdom Parliament, the Examination of Witnesses (Excerpts, Questions 85 – 99), she made the following statements:

– I would add to Steve’s comments that they closed more than 90 newspapers in the last two years. They are using a criminal law—an instrument of a crime for the hands of criminals—and using that law to close newspapers. Recently the remaining reformists that did not get sent to jail have opened web sites and they have their own web sites now. In the last few months the judiciary is thinking of a way of closing web sites and jailing those who are running them. In the past newspapers worked as a political party and a reform agenda was put in those newspapers and that is why they have become a target. The Iranian leader said there should be no amendment to the press law. President Khatami, to his credit, at the beginning promised freedom of expression but unfortunately even though it was prepared by the cabinet, by the President, it has not been introduced to the Parliament to amend the press law.

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