Equal rights are not special rights!

Yes it has been almost one year since we last updated this blog, but that’s not to say we have been slacking. Atousa is writing up her PhD thesis and has scheduled to complete in September.

Harj has spent three months in Honduras, Central America from July to October last year, doing volunteer work. This experience was remarkable she got the chance to live with and amongst the people of a small village and work with the women’s centre on their domestic violence project. She also learnt a lot about herself and feels as though she has become a better person because of it.

Today - the 8th March was International Women’s Day, Atousa and I (Harj) marched from London’s Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square in order to raise awareness and celebrate this day for women. The energy and atmosphere was encapsulating, women who we’d never met before felt like sisters, we all shared the same goal…to end violence against women, I had never seen such unity before this.

Domestic violence has stolen lives, wrecked families and left people like myself (Harj) to pick up the pieces. Life experiences have made us the strong independent women we are today.

However it is necessary to mention that the violation of women’s right is not always physical, sometimes successful women even in today’s society are regarded as too masculine, only if they give up their ambitions and careers can they be regarded as real women. To us this is another type of abuse, not physical but yet another demonstration of the socialisation of gender roles. This is another form of oppression which we will continuously fight against to achieve equal rights.

The message was simple…be untied be one.

Atousa and I are currently in discussions of a trip to Africa, originally we had hoped to go to Kenya, something Harj felt quite strongly about as it would have given her the chance to visit her mothers birth place, but the continued violence and bloodshed which sickens us to the stomach has meant we may have to visit somewhere else in Africa. It is still very early to know exactly when and for how long, but we are sure we want to work with disadvantaged children, and this time with endangered species as well.

So watch the space on this….

P.S.
After all that walking under the drizzling rain and shouting slogans, we treated ourselves to sushi for lunch which was a very good experience should you find yourselves drawn to the next march. Try it out!

And we jumped!

On Sunday the 25th of March, we did the unspeakable!
We jumped out of an airplane, the whole process is called parachute jumping of course!

Atousa Goudarzi managed to raise £445 for War child [reg.charity no. 1071659 reg.co.no. 3610100 (UK) ]. War child looks after children in conflict zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. So far they are the only organization which has been active in south of Iraq.

Harjeet Shakira jumped for child line [Registered charity number 216401]. ChildLine is the UK's free, 24-hour helpline for children in distress or danger. Last year ChildLine counselled almost 140,000 children and young people.

We hope that the money we raised for these charities helps them in the great work they are doing.

One thing which came out of these parachute jumps was the question Harj asked me (Atousa) when we were on our way to the parachute centre.
she asked me if i was afraid of dying on that date, I looked at her and we both said "I am not" at the same time.

Now this can be interpreted in 2 ways:

1) we are %100 happy with what we have achieved in our lives and there is noting more we desire!
2) we are two brave adventurous women who are not afraid to die in a new adventure!

hmm which one do you think it is??

Adios for now!

Get yourself some popcorn!

As was mentioned before, BBC Coventry and Warwickshire provided us with a camera to document our journey.

The 3 minutes documentaries were uploaded today. There was no red carpet involved to our disappointments!!!!!

In order to see the Science school documentary please click here.

and to see the domestic violence documentary Please click here.
and go to Watch the Vidoe.

I would like to thank Fay at BBC Coventry and Warwichshire for all she has done for us.

Memoirs of the two musketeers ...

In order to see more memorable pictures, here is the link:

www.flickr.com

Conclusion!

We felt we made a difference, however small, we felt welcomed and valued and will probably never forget the spark in the eyes of those young children and their desire to learn. we left feeling positive and satisfied that women were brave enough to question and open minded enough to listen to new points of views and different approaches. given the opportunity we would stay in deprived areas such as the one's we visited and do this work for longer. (provided we got Vegetable Biriyani everyday).

Their way of saying "thanks"...

I (Atousa) thought of a good way for recycling my birthday and Christmas cards. I took them to India with me in order to have a craft session with the children at the end of the science lessons. I explained to them that the educational material we have been working with were provided by the National Space Centre in Leicester.
I suggested that we all sit down together and in order to say thank you to the National Space Centre, we make them Thank you cards.
They were all so creative and passionate about it, and made wonderful cards which you can see some of them in the above picture.

FROM AMRITSAR TO DELHI!

After a eight hour journey on the Sachkand Express surrounded with wildlife i.e. mice!!!!!!! we arrived in one piece in Delhi. After being spoilt by Uncle and his colleagues in Amritsar, we found it difficult to cope on our own. However we managed to find our own accommodation in Karol Bhag,which was heaven for shopping, but unfortunately an hour away from schools and women's centre's, but is was all worthwhile because we managed to experience the joys of a freezing to death in the early hours of the morning on Delhi's public transport system.

Having gained more confidence from our work in Amritsar we managed to get more work done in Delhi and kept to a very busy schedule. The two places we visited, Amritsar and Delhi both had children who were eager and excited to learn, they participated, learnt and enjoyed the lessons and discussions very much to such an extent that they kept asking if we were coming back to them the next day.

The women's organization was a lot more active in Delhi, they worked to fight gender discrimination, and tackled problems such child abuse and domestic violence more openly then it was tackled in Amritsar. They held regular support groups and taught self defence one form of empowerment.