#iwd2014

[heatherltapia]

IWD 2014 Performance: Russian Kalinka Children's Dance Troupe

International Women’s Day Columbus Celebration hosted by Purpose for Women International nonprofit founded by Columbus Native, Author, Holistic Coach, Public Speaker Heather Lynn Tapia. Heather L. Tapia is a prosperity advisor, author, and a women’s empowerment speaker. She is author of “The Five Steps to Abundance: an intro to Love and Business,” available on Amazon.com. She is a metaphysical, sound ascension healer and angelic sound channel. Over the last 20 years, she has worked with thousands of individuals and business owners to help them to co-create and manifest their goals.

[docnad]

Is there anything humorous about domestic violence? attemptedbloggery.blogspot.com/2014/03/gardne… #GardnerRea #SpousalAbuse #IWD #IWD2014

[raaadddd]

One of the promotion posters for the TANA International Women's Day event held at the Royal Albert Palace on March 8, 2014.

[sammygeezy]

Drum playthrough for #Disdain coming soon. #IWD2014

[jssc-smsn]

International Women's Day // 2014

I went to a march to raise awareness for IWD in March 2014, because my Final Major Project was based on creating a more positive outlook for Feminism. I got some lovely pictures on the day.

[heatherltapia]

IWD 2014: Vendor Interviews by Heather Lynn Tapia

International Women's Day Columbus Celebration hosted by Purpose for Women International nonprofit founded by Columbus Native, Author, Holistic Coach, Public Speaker Heather Lynn Tapia. Heather L. Tapia is a prosperity advisor, author, and a women's empowerment speaker. She is author of "The Five Steps to Abundance: an intro to Love and Business," available on Amazon.com. She is a metaphysical, sound ascension healer and angelic sound channel. Over the last 20 years, she has worked with thousands of individuals and business owners to help them to co-create and manifest their goals.

[theangriestnerd]

My favourite song on Transgender Dysphoria Blues! 

I'm still surprised that I got to play this on my college's pop station. Especially since verse 2 goes like this

What's the best end you can hope for? Pity fucks and table scraps. Subterfuge and detachment, A bullet in the head and a bullet in the chest.

[patriciafortunato]

Chiming in on the eve of International Women’s Day. Download the new app and #chimein for girls and women everywhere!!!

[outernationalband]

1) Download Fighting Song on Bandcamp.  2) Sing along!!!

[hoppestanzania]

Friday, 25- 04 -14, 12:50 PM Tanzanian Time (6:50 Kiswahili Time)

Hi everyone! Long time no talk, as usual. Sorry about that. So in the last post I said that I was about to start school but I actually got a call from Peace Corps in December that postponed the start of school for me. At our mid-service conference in September, I had mentioned to our Country Director that I really love doing girls empowerment work and might like to do it in the future. So when PC Tanzania was approached by a new girls empowerment organization that asked me to help out. This new organization is called Huru International. Huru does work in only Kenya right now, but wants to start work in Tanzania and thought that Peace Corps was a good “in” here. Huru is an organization that provides re-usuable sanitary pads to school-aged girls. This is a huge help because many women and girls in the third world do not have the means to take care of themselves in a safe and sanitary way during their periods. Many girls miss school every month because they don’t have pads, or because the things they do use are not reliable and they are afraid they will stain their skirts. This means that a girl here may miss 20-50 days of school a year because of this problem alone! This is just another thing that puts girls at a disadvantage here. And it’s a problem that is hidden because people are embarrassed to talk about it. We are trying to get PCVs in TZ to take advantage of this new opportunity and come up with projects and activities in their communities to incorporate this new organization and their product. So in January, I met with a few people from Huru, helped them write an application for PCVs, and then helped them present themselves to a group of PCVs at Early Service and Mid-Service training. Needless to say, I am excited to be working with this group. Actually, I could be extending my stay in Tanzania to do further work with them. Don’t want to jinx it though. More on that at a later time ;) After a week of meetings and helping with training, I was back to school and back to my regular job. The beginning of the school year is always the worst here. Things are disorganized. Students slowly decide to show up to school. And you never really know when to start teaching or what you are supposed to be doing. To top it all off, on my second day back I got a call from Deo, one of my friends in the village, saying that his mother had died. He asked me if I would come to the funeral that day to take video and pictures. I’ve seen funerals in TZ from afar before, but this is the first one I actually attended. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been avoiding them for a reason. Funerals here are usually not a religious celebration, they are very traditional. So, here is what happens. The person’s body is put into a decorated casket and then into a car (or some kind of transport). Then the person’s family and close friends also get into cars and they sort of parade through the village until they reach the place where the “funeral” will be. When the body and family arrive, it is complete chaos. The women are expected to wail and cry at the top of their lungs to show respect for the person who died. The casket is brought into the funeral building while the women follow after it crying. The women then wait in a line outside and one-by-one go into the building to cry and scream and roll around on the floor, all as a sign of respect. While all of this is going on, the men head to the bar to start drinking…I’m no really sure how long this goes on because I left after a few hours. The funeral celebration can last for days though; as long as there is food and drink (all of which is paid for by a collection from all of the family and friends- this is one thing I really like about the way funerals work here- everyone chips in to pay). I went back to the village on Friday to get my camera and people were still around, socializing and eating and drinking. And that’s it, my first (and hopefully, only) Tanzanian funeral. Anyways, back to school. The exciting thing about starting this school year was that I had some big plans for the year to come, most of which were girls’ empowerment things. First of all, we chose girls for the Maua Mazuri program and started teaching it 2 days a week after school. We chose girls from Form 1 and 3 (freshmen and juniors). The program has gone really well so far. I’m sure you remember, but Maua Mazuri means Beautiful Flowers and it’s the art program 4 other volunteers, 5 locals teachers, and I wrote. It uses art to give girls self-confidence and teach them things like women’s health, HIV/AIDS, decision-making, etc. So far we have taught them creative writing, poetry, music, dance, acting, and public speaking. Today we start drawing. It’s really cool to see the transformation these girls have gone through and the recognition we have gotten from the school. The girls have really become leaders in the school and the Maua Mazuri girls are now expected to perform at every school event. It’s just nice to see that something we created from scratch (and in an entirely different language) might actually be working. Another big event we held this year was International Women’s Day (IWD) 2014. You might remember that I did something for IWD last year? Well it was such a big hit that my teachers wanted to do something again. This year we went a little bigger and planned a whole week of events. On the first day the girls made posters and received flowers to wear in order to raise awareness. The theme this year was “You are a girl. You are confident. You can change the world.”; “Wewe ni msichana. Wewe unajiamini. Wewe unaweza kubadilisha ulimwengu.” On the second day, the debate club hosted a debate: “Should we empower girls in TZ?” I sort of let the club and teacher in charge decide what they wanted to do for this and wasn’t too happy when I saw the topic of debate, but it actually turned out ok. The debate teacher and I got to have the final say, so we got to help the students reach the conclusion that the answer to that question is an obvious “YES!” And the debate teacher really surprised me. To be honest I thought he was an arrogant, chauvinistic, a** (and still kind of think that), but his speech and message to the kids was spot on and inspiring. On the third day I took over after-school club time and had teachers go into the classroom and teach about gender equality and women’s rights. Now, getting teachers here to do extra work after school is nearly impossible and 3 teachers canceled on me at the last minute, but in the end I got a teacher in every classroom and every student in the school learned about gender equality that day. The fourth day was one of my favorites. I chose 5 girls from Form 4 to walk to the village with me to distribute flowers and tell villagers about what we were celebrating. The girls did a really good job. They were confident and kind and distributed more than 200 flowers! We ended the day with sodas and they all thanked me and told me it was a great day. The final event of the week was an assembly and party. We spent all morning preparing; choosing music, waiting for my counterpart to show up, decorating, waiting for my counterpart to show up, making a schedule for the show, dancing, waiting for my counterpart to show up…. My counterpart did finally show up in the afternoon (only about 5 hours late) and we got the party started. My counterpart was the MC for the event and was amazing as usual. The girls performed skits, songs, speeches, and dances (and I might be biased, but the Maua Mazuri girls were the best performers by far ;) I gave a speech (which I have posted in both English and Swahili above- compare it to last years and you’ll see how far my Swahili has come). After the show, we had a dance party. I felt so famous- everybody wanted to dance with me. I practically got attacked when I first got on the dance floor. After dancing for hours and hours (seriously, these girls have so much energy!), we took a break for dinner. After dinner, I announced that we would be showing a movie and practically got attacked again. So, to end the day we watched Chumo, a movie in Swahili that subtlety teaches about Malaria, and painted nails until bed time. It was possibly the most exhausting week of my service but SO worth it. The week was full of those moments that make all of the confusion and homesickness and diarrhea of living here totally and completely worth it. The last event on my list of girl’s empowerment was actually a Boy’s Empowerment Conference. I’ve discovered more and more how important it is to also give boy’s here to tools and education they need to support the women in their lives. Anyways, in the middle of March, I teamed up with 4 other volunteers to do a Boy’s Conference in Mafinga. Now, I don’t know if you’ve heard but I’m sort of the Empowerment Conference expert here in TZ…no big deal. Anyways, this conference was far less stressful than they usually are because I really know what I’m doing now. It was also just a really good group of volunteers and teachers. We addressed the usual topics: goal-setting, role models, decision-making, HIV/AIDS, etc. But the second day of the conference was a little different. We spent most of the day doing science and art activities. The morning was full of explosions and building rockets and bridges (my students built the best bridge by the way!). And in the afternoon we decided to try out some of out Maua Mazuri lessons on the boys. I think they really liked it. They loved the acting lessons! They were a little hesitant when I made them express their emotions and sing about it, but it was good for them. As always, one of the highlights of the conference was the talent show- some of these boys are such hams! It’s great. At the end of the show we all stood in a circle clapping and singing and taking turns going into the middle of the circle to show off our dance moves. It doesn’t matter what kind of dance move you do here- they adore you and go crazy…I’ll miss that. Anyways, one conference down and just one more to go during my service here. That will be five total. I love it. Well that’s it for now because this post is getting too long. In my next post I will give an account of traveling during the rainy season. It includes trains, boats, and buses and lots of adventure. It also include vomiting and being stranded in the rain. Aw, the ups and downs of living in Tanzania! Thought for the day: It’s official. Girls’ Empowerment work is my calling. There was a moment during our IWD assembly that it really hit me and became crystal clear. Maybe I’ll look back at this later in life and laugh, but for now its how I feel. Kiswahili phrase for the day: Maonyesho (Show)

[some-thing-visual]

Happy IWD 2014

[iwdandfillmycup2014]

Here is a word collage of words posted so far on the blog! I am going to try to do this as I go along. I think it shall be an interesting way to see what I have been posting-Hope you enjoy!

[patriciafortunato]

New app in good company

[sxswiwdselfies-blog]

Continuing the selfie series back in NY with some of my favorite people around! All three of these ladies (L to R: Sheena Medina, Lea Marino, & Meghan Peters) have been friends, mentors, and colleagues even before I moved to NY, and I couldn't be happier to work with them on #CMmeetup every month. 

Oh, and yes, that is the Facebook Wall behind us :)