Bideshi blue makes me aware that yesterday was the Global Day of Action, and the entry for Jan 26th is full of links to important information and events. The post also has links to dsicussions about the World Social Forum, a significant event to many women in other countries, though its covereage in the US and UK seems slight to non-existent. (I would love to be wrong about this!)
Bideshi Blue is connected to the Nari Jibon website , an initiative of Rising Voices, which seeks to redress the representative inbalance in the online world:
“..certain regions of the world and certain demographics within those regions have benefited from the boom in citizen media more than others. Most bloggers and podcasters still tend to be middle or upper-middle class. Most have a college-level education. Most live in large cities. And of the 70 million weblogs now tracked by Technorati, 95% of them are written in just 10 languages. The truth is, what we often call the ‘global conversation,’ is a privileged discussion among global elites.”
Rising Voices in turn is an initiative of Global Voices Online, which is currently linking to the http://www.youtube.com project to provide input to the World Economic Forum from ordinary people.
These online voices are an enriching source for Western feminists. And after Jender mentioned Nari Jibon in her edition of the Carnival, we have had several vaued communications with its Executive Director, Kathy Ward. Thanks, Kathy!
Addition: The Nari Jibon project is much bigger than its website; to quote from the calendar Kathy so kindly sent:
Nari Jibon Project provides alternative skills and training for women workers in a safe space and then connecting them with employers. Nari Jibon has established a blog in English, titled “Bangladesh from Our View” http://narijibon.blogspot.com and Bangla “Amader Galpa (Our Stories)” http://banglablog-narijibon.blogspot.com to increase students’ & staffs’ creativity on different areas.
Feminist Philosophers 