Women and the Sky (part three).

This blog’s aim is to give a conclusion to the previous two posts and to re-enforce how much impact reading “ Half the Sky” has had on me. As I stated in part two, once I had read this book, then my feeling was that I had to take some positive action.

This list is what is being done now,with even greater emphasis, and what will be done in the future:

1) It was soon clear, by chapter two, that sponsoring a child would be definite way of lifting, or at least considerably reducing a child’s risk of being sold into sexual slavery. There was no surprises when this was stated as one of the points raised at the book’s end. I have looked at suitable child sponsorship websites and most likely will be choosing Action Aid. My choice of country will be India, where the highest rates of prostitution and child sexual slavery exists. The aim is to have an Indian child sponsorship in place by the end of January at a cost of £15 per month. This will be a firm long-term commitment.

 2) I already had heard of Kiva and have two loans already in place for two women. One lives in Peru and one In Africa. Once the money has been re-paid I will then look at helping another two women.

3) Networking with other people is hugely important. I have forged more links with people, via twitter, WordPress (blog) and Facebook and this has been hugely exciting and rewarding. I recently met with people from FORWARD at Amnesty International London and this was very positive.

4) My strong interest in FGM/C is well-known among my closest friends and contacts. However, I have written very little about it and have been very silent in many ways surrounding this subject. This has been because I felt sometimes embarrassed writing about it, talking about genitalia and circumcision. A very sensitive subject many could find offensive. However, the silence is now off on this and I will be showing more of what I am learning, reading and doing as well as campaigning against it.

5) Finally, my training for a local race in May for my women’s causes goes on - all be it the snow has halted training at the moment.  There may have to be some changes to the races’ aims because of the weather and my own difficulties with training over the last three months. However, the beneficiaries for this effort will be FORWARD and the Women’s Resource Centre UK. There will be a separate blog about the race in the next month.

I have only made five statements here because I intend to fulfill each one of them. I don’t often make a New Year resolution but I made one this year which for me applies to all areas of my life. To set achievable goals that I can do, can stick to, and that I will see through to the end. To work when work needs doing and as well as recreation. 

 With this in mind, I will now get on and work on these. In six months, I will give an update saying what has happened as a result.