News updates

In its issue of today, Al Hayat newspaper portrayed the return to traditional women-made handicrafts, particularly after the ‘import boom’ in the past few years of cheap commercial goods which covered almost all aspects of household and fashion accessories and which largely affected the local artisan industry. Since the latter, the newspaper expounded, requires extensive and strenuous work, it cannot be sold at low prices and therefore cannot compete with machine-made imported commodities. In this respect, Al Hayat pointed out that after the disruption of training workshops in rural areas, social centers regained their initiatives, particularly those related to empowerment of Syrian refugee women and their integration in the artisan sector. This, the newspaper explained, has directly impacted their Lebanese peers who live in the same area. In a tour on a group of artisan women working from their home or in collective workshops, the newspaper noted a remarkable demand on their relatively high priced products. The reason for this growing trend, L’Orient Le Jour maintained, is that customers have a preference for the possession of unique and quality handmade goods rather than low-priced poor quality products. In addition, social media has opened the door to women to promote and sell their creations on their own page, without having to worry about the cost of shop rent. On the other hand, skilled craftswomen stressed a need for official support, notably from the ministries of culture and social affairs, to help in the organizing of group exhibitions and in subsidizing raw material, as stated by pottery artist, Samira Fadel. (Al Hayat, March 17, 2016)

 

In coordination with the Lebanese National Commission for UNESCO (LNCU), the Social Sciences Department at the School of Philosophy and Humanities, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, organized yesterday a lecture entitled ‘Women’s Commitment in the Arab World’. The purpose of the lecture was to shed light on the role of women as partners with men in building a community that respects human dignity and active citizenship. The event comes at a time women’s obligations have become more symbolic rather than human actions which help in bringing up a genuine non-sectarian society, as said the head of the Social Studies department, Professor Mirna Abbud Mizawak. Likewise, the LNCU secretary general, Zahida Jabbur, underlined the significant role of women in the Arab World despite “discriminatory traditions”. “It is time for women to strengthen  their presence, which in fact has started to develop as we can see in the steady increase in the number of women students at the various colleges, institutes and disciplines. At times, these numbers exceeded that of male students,” Jabbur said. For her part, Dr. Carol Andres Dissourn of LNCU, pointed out that women’s issues are part of the larger cause of humanity and cannot be “narrowed down to advocates of women who oppose men,” as she put it. “Many men have believed and still believe in women’s commitment to their society,” Dissourn said, adding, that the commitment of Arab women in particular is not new, but has a long history of struggle to attain their rights, and achieve citizenship and Pan-Arabism. (An Nahar, March 16, 2016)

 

Some 200 students from various universities in Lebanon gathered at the Youth Speak Out Forum to discuss the basic problems they face in their communities. In collaboration with partners from the UNDP, Morgan International, UK-Lebanon TechHub, Info Pro, and Grenoble Graduate School of Business and others, students worked on a number of projects with the aim to solve a specific issues or problems. In this respect, two groups were announced winners. The first received the prize of implementation, and the second won a chance to participate in the ‘Bootcamp’ program supported by AltCity. As for the winning project which is expected to be carried out by the International Student Identity Card (ISIC), it is a newspaper targeting the young generation, with the aim to bridge the gap in terms of reliable information that express the youth’s state of mind. It should be noted, that the said forum has also invited a number of stakeholders in different fields to work together in raising awareness and achieving the goals of sustainable development. Speaking on behalf of Morgan International, Fadi Ghani said: “Young people should be well prepared for the future, and therefore should gain  expertise outside the classroom, as it is valuable in our world today.” He urged the youth to go abroad, volunteer, attend in conferences and get certificates beyond  their standard disciplines. This, he said, guarantees acquisition of skills and behavior needed for resolving above problems. (An Nahar, March 16, 2016)

 

In its issue of today, L’Orient Le Jour daily uncovered the 2016 list of the most powerful Arab women for the year as published by the Arabian Business online magazine. The list showed a drop in the number of Lebanese women from 12 and 17 women for 2014 and 2015 to only 10 women the present year. Among the names published by the newspaper is Nayla Hayek, CEO and Co-Founder of the world’s biggest watch companies, Swatch, who came seventh in the list, whereas the British-Lebanese lawyer, Amal Alam Eddine Clooney, came 17th, falling from the second position in 2015. For her part, former minister, and current vice-president of Al Waleed Bin Talal Humanitarian Foundation, Leyla El Solh Hamadeh, came 24th with a decline of  7 grades from last year. Among other prominent women on the list, the international journalist Raghida Durgham, came 28th, followed by journalist and writer, Joumana Hadad, 36th, going up from 54. Grace Najjar, on the other hand, the management consultant for a number of private and public sector projects, came 42nd after having occupied the 39th position in 2015. Feyrouz, the legend singer, moved up the list from 86th rank last year to 63 this year, followed by activist Christine Tohmeh who came 68th. Finally, Lebanese entertainers Elissa and Miriam Fares ranked 71st and 81st respectively. (L'Orient Le Jour, March 15, 2016)

 

The activities marking the International Women’s Day (IWD), on March 8, continued in Lebanon throughout then end of last week. Following is a new batch of selected events. 

 

 Conferences, celebrations and more

 

● League for Lebanese Women’s Rights demands amendments of discriminatory laws

● Progressive Women’s Union’s seminar on domestic violence in the North

● ESCWA celebrates IWD with the banner ‘A step to reach gender equality’

●  ‘Women and Crafts’ workshop at the Center for International Intellectual Property Studies

● Future Movement recalls the struggle of Arab women

● UNIFIL competition in Marje3yoon under the heading ‘The woman role model’

 

New programs and actions

 

● Girls Got It’ initiative to encourage women and girls to study engineering

 

 

(An Nahar, Al Mustaqbal, March 12-13-14, 2016)

 

The Basma Charity Association organized last week a graduation ceremony for the first of five groups of women who completed an intensive 12-session training course on the skills required by the labor market. The workshops took place at the Primary Health Care Center in the Beirut suburb of Cheyah (PHCCC), in collaboration with the local municipality. Women entrepreneurs also contributed to the training by sharing their experiences in various issues, such as, personal skills, orientation and preparedness, accounting, communication and organization, and access to small credits. During the graduation ceremony, Basma founding president, Sandra Khlat Abdel Noor, said that the women’s empowerment programme which is supported by ‘Recettes de Vie’ (Recipes of Life) initiative, will contribute to the improvement of women’s livelihoods, and will also have a positive impact on all other family members. Finally, Abdel Noor pointed out that the graduation event is only a starting point for participants who are now qualified to apply for jobs through the Association’s recruitment offices or by directly contacting private sector institutions. (L’Orient Le Jour, March 11, 2016)

 

On the occasion of International Women Day (IWD) the AUB Red Oak Club organized this Tuesday a march under the banner ‘The Street is Ours Even at Late Night’ in clear protest against the continuing sexual harassment of women. The demonstration which took off from Ain Mreiseh coastal corniche towards the Riyadi Sports Club, coincides with and is inspired by the annual feminist night march known as ‘Reclaim the Night’ to regain the safety of public spaces. Participants hoisted posters that contained answers to questions put to them when they decide to speak up about their disagreeable experiences of harassment. Like for example, ‘the question is not what you were wearing’, or ‘the street has no opening hours’, or ‘no, it is not ok’ and ‘to talk dirty to me is not gallant’. The local police also had their share in a banner that said, ‘even security is not secure’, pointing out to the alleged harassment of women by security forces. Elaborating on the above march, the Red Oak Club activist, Aya Adra, explained that choosing the coastal corniche had two reasons: first to reclaim public spaces that are being systematically appropriated through privatization schemes, and secondly because the corniche is a typical place for sexual harassment incidents. Adra stressed that “harassment is not the problem of one person; rather it is interconnected with a greater patriarchal male chauvinist system that rips women of their natural right to walk safely in the streets at night.” Concerning rape, Adra indicated that three women were raped only last week in Beirut, adding that the three women live in the same area and know each others. Adra concluded by stressing that these women had the courage to disclose what happened to them, while the actual number of women cases who experienced rape but did not declare, remains unknown. (As Safir, March 10, 2016)

 

The former dean of the Lebanese University School of Dentistry and head of the Maronite Diaspora Institute, NSW Branch, Professor Fadia Ghosn, won the ‘Woman of the Year 2016’ title for the New South Wales State of Australia. Ghosn, it should be recalled, founded the Lebanese Australian Institution at the University of Sydney after she emigrated to Australia in 2001. The said institution provides annual scholarships for students with outstanding performance. Upon receiving the award in an official ceremony held at the NSW Parliament, Ghosn pledged to accomplish more similar social and women-related missions. She did not forget to extend her gratitude to her homeland, Lebanon, and to her own family and everyone who supported her. (An Nahar, March 10, 2016)

 

As customary on IWD every year, women groups celebrated the occasion with increased activities which included conferences, launch of studies and reports, public events, sit in and marches, in an attempt to highlight the important role of women in society as well as the persistent discrimination against them.  This year, the celebration IWD is taking place amidst a noticeable vacuum at the level of social and women movements, high security, political, and livelihood pressures and in the absence of any indication of a possible breakthrough on either of these fronts.  These factors, as well as the rather limited transformatory vision of the feminist struggle in the country resulted in modest activities which raised a redundancy of demands focusing on the need for legal reforms and on enhancing political, social and economic opportunities for women. For more highlights about IWD selected celebration events that took place during the last two days, please check: http://www.weeportal-lb.org/news/modest-activities-celebrate-iwd