WELDD's blog

Following the peaceful 2013 general elections, I decided to explore and highlight the role of youth and women in the peace process that transformed its previous 2007/2008 volatile post-election violence. On my last day in Nairobi, a few hours before heading to the Westgate shopping mall, I heard about the Al Shabab attack. It was a tragic and sad day, waiting for the fate of the hostages and praying for the victims. Two weeks ago, Tunisia has also witnessed an attack on the Bardo Museum in the heart of the capital city, Tunis, next door to the Parliament. I experienced the same saddening feeling.

A week ago, I woke up to the most horrifying news I have ever heard. I woke up around 9 a.m. and checked my Facebook account. It was full of pictures and videos of a woman who had just been brutally killed by a mob in Kabul. The first sentences I read about the incident left me in shock: "Today we killed a woman who burned the Quran-e Sharif, Allah u Akbar."

Lately I came across a picture of Yara in the white uniform of the prison. I couldn't stop myself from thinking, "ooh she looks beautiful in white." She seemed tired but still smiling, and giving hope to others. The white uniform added a graceful aspect to her free spirit. White is the light, white is the new page for writers and a blank campus for painters. Yara in white is sending a message, that she is actually starting a new chapter of her courageous journey for human rights and justice.

“Men acting like women?”
“Homosexuality?”
“This is a sign of the End Times!”

It has been 6 months since we began working together with Afghanistan’s National Mountain Climbing Federation to establish a women’s national mountain climbing team for Afghanistan. In doing so, we are aiming to introduce new conquerors, and to challenge the idea that “it is a man’s thing to be a mountain climber” or “women should just stay inside their houses.”

From the photos of Shaimaa El-Sabbagh murder in 24 January 2015 in Cairo, Egypt, Radwa recalls a feeling she has every time she went on a march.

At the end of August 2014 with the beginning of the men’s volleyball world championships, a sad news story surfaced in Iranian social media communities stating that a young woman named Ghoncheh Ghavami had been arrested. Ghavami was detained on June 20th at Azadi (“Freedom” in Farsi) where female fans held a brief demonstration after being told they could not enter the stadium to watch a men’s volleyball match.

As I prepare for this blogpost now listening to “sexy and I know it” track, I think of Big Brother listening to the track with me, and hoping he doesn't arrest me for “Poor musical taste”, and recently it's not just me, but everyone in the 89M Egypt's population should be thinking about that, Why?

That's what I'm here for...