Announcing UNESCO's first-ever female Director General, Irina Bokova!

Photo: UNESCO

We are pleased to share UNESCO's announcement of the appointment of Irina Bokova, a former Bulgarian politician and ambassador to France and Monaco, as the Director-General of UNESCO. Director-General Bokova is the first woman and the first representative of an Eastern European country to occupy this position since the founding of the Organization in 1945. DG Bokova comes to the post with over three decades of experience in the international arena. Previously, she served as Secretary of State for European Integration, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and was elected a Member of Parliament in Bulgaria. She had been a Permanent Delegate of her country to UNESCO since 2005.

As the "Women's Empowerment" UNITWIN, Irina's appointment is of special excitement to us. Since one of UNESCO's two organizational priorities through until 2013 is Gender Equality, we anticipate a redoubling of the important work the Organization is carrying out in this arena!

A warm welcome and hearty congratulations to DG Bokova, from the Women's Studies Program at Boston University and from our University and NGO partners in India and Burkina Faso!

A Letter from BU Grad Yael Shapira from Southern India

Dear Prof. McSweeney,

I just wanted to send a quick update from India, since I have recently been thinking about you quite often in the context of my work.

Two weeks ago I began an internship with the NGO Aide et Action (it deals with education, especially of people in the rural areas). The specific project I'm working on at this point is evaluating the implementation of inclusive education programs for children with disabilities. I just came back from a week out in the villages, in Andhra Pradesh, where I went to government schools and interviewed students, teachers, mandal leaders, and self-help groups of people with disabilities. The point was to find out if the students are actually being included in the mainstream education and if they are still facing any discrimination. My findings were really fascinating.

With a self-help group for disabled people.

"Inclusive Education" is one of the methods of implementing the "education for all" law here in India. With regards to children with disabilities, it entails getting children out of their houses, work, or special education schools and including them into mainstream classrooms. It is an approach that requires the school to adapt to the child's needs, rather than an integration approach in which the child has to adapt to the rest of the class.

After going out into the villages and conducting many interviews, I found that the children with disabilities have indeed been identified and taken out of their homes to attend the mainstream schools. Awareness has been created by NGOs to rid of superstitions and discrimination. As a first step that is very important. However, these children are merely being integrated and their special needs are not being taken care of in order for them to get a real education and to achieve their rights.

With a classroom that has children with disabilities.

I also got to meet villagers living in a temporary tent community because their village and crops were destroyed in recent floods. It made me realize how important disaster relief work is, and I am pretty sure that I am going to focus on that in my future studies.

I want to let you know that I felt as if everything I learned in the Gender and International Development class came to life right in front of me. It was such an incredible experience to actually be out in the field and talking to people about their experiences instead of just reading about them in a textbook, and I was truly inspired by so many of the people. Your class really prepared me for dealing with so many of the issues I am coming across (such as child labor, girls in school, etc.) and I would really like to thank you for that.

All the best,

Yael

UNESCO's UNITWIN Program Introduces its New Logo!

Owing to the growth of the successful UNESCO Chairs/UNITWIN (University Twinning) program under the dynamic leadership of Dr. Sonia Bahri, the program has now been accorded its own logo!

Pictured below is Sonia with her team on the occasion of a recent meeting in Paris with Brenda Gael McSweeney, to strategize for the future of the UNESCO UNITWIN on Gender, Culture, and People-Centered Development, anchored at Boston University and with prestigious partners in India and Burkina Faso. The UNITWIN poster featuring the new logo is the backdrop!

From l to r: Ariana Stahmer, Hassmik Tortian, Brenda Gael McSweeney, Sonia Bahri, Inga Nichanian, and Milena Caceres Valderrama.

Momentous News from Visva-Bharati, West Bengal!

 Just in from eastern India:

"Dear Dr. McSweeney,
 

I received a copy of your mail to Kumkum {Bhattacharya - UNITWIN Coordinator Visva-Bharati} and am happy to know the activities, plans and programs of UNITWIN. I am happy to inform you that UGC {University Grants Commission} has granted us the status of a Women's Studies Centre for which we have been trying for the last ten years as a Cell.
 

I have joined as Director two months back and we have taken up different plans and projects under the umbrella. We plan to have a national conference on Women and Development around March 2010 and would try to get Martha Nussbaum. Prof. Amartya Sen would also be visiting in Dec. 2009 and I wish to discuss our plans with him. We had a wonderful inauguration function as Kumkum wrote to you with paying our respects to about 30 Women in Santiniketan who have made life long contributions in various capacities to Ashrama life of
Santiniketan.

For the present we have decided to limit our activities basically within Birbhum District. I already had a meeting last month with 20 NGO's working in Birbhum for empowerment of Women. We plan to work with them beside our own programs and research.
 

We wish to thank you very much for all the help and look for more and more interactions.
 

With warm personal regards and best,
 

Asha Mukherjee
Director, Women's Studies Centre
Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan"

Huge congratulations to Asha and our Visva-Bharti UNITWIN Partners!

Kumkum Bhattacharya's excitement:

"One momentous piece of news - Visva-Bharati has its own Women's Studies Centre inaugurated on October 25, 2009 by Professor Jasodhara Bagchi the founding director of the Women's Studies Centre, Jadavpur University and presently the Chairperson, Women's Commission, West Bengal and Professor Sumita Sen, present Director of the Jadavpur University's Women's Studies Centre." 

Indeed, thrilling news that we hope will be inspirational to other Women's Studies initiatives in India and beyond!  

Newest 'TWIN'!

We're thrilled to announce that West Africa has joined our Network, in the person of Mme Scholastique Kompaoré from Burkina Faso. 'Scho', currently President of the Marche Mondiale des Femmes (World March of Women - Burkina branch), is also on the Board of Directors of CUSO/VSO - Canada (Canadian University Service Overseas/Voluntary Service Overseas). She was a pioneer in the gender equality movement in Burkina, and National Coordinator of the 'UNESCO/UNDP/Government Pilot Project for Equal Access of Women and Girls to Education'. She also ran from Zimbabwe the Africa South of the Sahara UNDP/UN Volunteers Programme for Exchange of Conmmunity Field Workers for a decade.

Welcome, Scholastique!

Forthcoming Conference at JMI

Dr. Arvinder Ansari presenting at the Visva Bharati conference, Shantiniketan, October 2008.

Dr. Arvinder Ansari has informed us that the Department of Sociology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India is organizing a National Seminar on "Muslim Alienation: Manifestation and Challenges," sponsored by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) on 17 and 18 November, 2009.

We look forward to sharing more information about the conference in the coming weeks!

Forthcoming Study from Dr. Yaaminey Mubayi

Dr. Malkit Kaur of Punjabi University at Patiala, left, and Dr. Yaaminey Mubayi, right, at Nabha, Punjab, India in October 2008.

Dr. Yaaminey Mubayi's study, "Mapping Cultural Aspirations in Jamia Nagar," was recently completed, and will be presented at a conference in November. Yaaminey is on the Expert Committee of Government of Punjab for Development of Cultural Tourism. Watch this space!

Announcing the 2010 Sikhpoint Calendar, “Conserving Sikh Heritage” from the Cultural Resource Conservation Initiative (CRCI)

Conservation Architect Gurmeet S. Rai at the Golden Temple, Amritsar, India, October 2008

"Conservation Architect Gurmeet S. Rai is the Founder and Director of the unique Cultural Resource Conservation Initiative that preserves and enhances India’s cultural heritage. CRCI effectively bridges from helping forge international and national cultural heritage policy to grassroots action, notably in Punjab and other states of India. Gurmeet is also the initiator of the Lime Centre, which works to revitalize communities through cultural heritage projects and develops inventories and cost-effective appropriate technologies. She believes strongly that conservation is a vital part of development, not, as often perceived, a peripheral activity. In addition, Gurmeet works with the United Nations World Tourism Organization as the Cultural Heritage Specialist, spearheading the master plan for tourism in Punjab. Gurmeet and the CRCI are the recipients of numerous prestigious global and local awards, and are partners in our UNESCO Chair/University Twinning Network on Gender, Culture, and People-Centered Development."

- Dr. Brenda Gael McSweeney

A preview of the 2010 CRCI Sikhpoint Calendar, "Conserving Sikh Heritage" being launched in Los Angeles in November 2009:

Kumar Rana on "Home Task"

Kumar Rana at the Pratichi Trust Annual Symposium, Shantiniketan, August 2009

'' 'Home Task' is the required period of intensive study time at home for primary school-aged children in India. As far as I know, India is the only nation in the world that mandates that her primary-aged school children must engage in extensive amounts of time devoted to their studies outside of the classroom setting. Here in West Bengal, as in most Indian states, this mandatory requirement is routinely adhered to. 

Sadly, the lack of proper 'Home Task' facilitation for poorer students throughout India is one of serious concern, leading to huge disparities between the social classes. Students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds are unable to receive assistance 'memorizing their textbooks' and doing other exercises because their families are unable to afford private tutoring, in stark contrast to their wealthier peers whose parents can afford such expenditures. 

This constrained context for economically disadvantaged children produces a clear case of class division that can only be eradicated through radical and systemic change. This change must include a major overhaul in the curriculum and syllabus of primary school education in India that will close disparities between rich and poor students. We intend to publish a study and recommendations in December, with the formal assistance and release by Professor Sen, to address this most serious disparity facing the economically disadvantaged children of India."

- Kumar Rana

Amartya Sen at the Pratichi Trust Annual Workshop on "Syllabus, Teaching, and Learning and Mid-Day Meal," Shantiniketan, 2-3 August 2009

Prof. Amartya Sen speaking at the Pratichi Trust Workshop

From Kumar Rana, Pratichi Trust:

"The Pratichi Annual Workshop on "Syllabus, Teaching and Learning and Mid-Day Meal" was held at Shantiniketan on 2-3 August, 2009. It's an event that the Pratichi Trust has been organizing since 2002, and Professor Sen has been one of the most consistent participants at this meeting. It's a platform where parents, teachers and others including policy-level people, academics, and activists interact. At the last meeting, 60 participants spoke, and of them 45 were parents and teachers. As a general rule, meetings are addressed by "big people" to be heard by the "small" ones; but our meeting turned the table around. Also, we took another radical decision - all of the four sessions were chaired by teachers and the general public, and the male/female ratio of the chairpersons was exactly 50-50."

Recurring themes:

1. The preparation of the syllabus, training modules and textbooks needs to be decentralized. Teachers have to be incorporated into this process.

2. The syllbus should be so prepared that the conception of 'home task' at the primary level - found no where in the world except the subcontinent - be abolished, without making some immediate systemic changes.
3. The mid-day meal has not yet been univerlized; this must be completed on urgent basis. Also, problems in the programme - supply, allocation, operation - need to be eradicated. The transparency mechanism that was in place in its initial days has to be brought back with added vigour.

Recap:

The Workshop "focused on the syllabus at the primary level and its connection with teaching and learning; and the implementation of the mid-day meal program, particularly at the upper primary (5 - 8 standard) stage. With 320 participants from villages across West Bengal, it was a remarkable event that opened paths for democratic dialogue in a more meaningful and effective way."

The audience at the Pratichi Trust Workshop