{"id":176435134,"date":"2014-04-08T01:15:11","date_gmt":"2014-04-08T06:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/?p=176435134"},"modified":"2014-04-08T01:15:11","modified_gmt":"2014-04-08T06:15:11","slug":"video-the-triumph-of-rwandas-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/2014\/04\/08\/video-the-triumph-of-rwandas-women\/","title":{"rendered":"VIDEO: The Triumph of Rwanda\u2019s Women"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"logo\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/etc\/clientlibs\/witw\/img\/logo\/witw-logo.png\" width=\"667\" height=\"67\" \/><\/p>\n<p>APR 4, 2014<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_176435135\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/rwanda-01.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-176435135\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-176435135\" alt=\"Marc Bryan-Brown\/Women in the World\" src=\"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/rwanda-01.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/rwanda-01.jpg 620w, https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/rwanda-01-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-176435135\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: small;\"><strong>Marc Bryan-Brown\/Women in the World<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<hgroup>\n<h1><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: xx-large;\">The Triumph of Rwanda\u2019s Women<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/hgroup>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><small><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">B<\/span><\/strong><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><strong>Y\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/contributors\/emily-shire.html\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong>EMILY SHIRE<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/small><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: large;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: large;\"><strong>Two decades after genocide left more than 800,000 people dead in Rwanda, the country has rebuilt itself and the Women in the World summit hears how women played a huge part in that country\u2019s amazing success.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<section><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"ytplayer16964904535382827\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/akbQz8-I-y0?fs=1&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;showinfo=0\" height=\"392\" width=\"588\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/section>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">Twenty years ago, Eugenie Mukeshimana was eight months pregnant when genocide broke out in her homeland of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/articles\/2014\/04\/02\/two-decades-after-genocide-rwanda-s-women-have-made-the-nation-thrive.html\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Rwanda<\/span><\/a>. As hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were slaughtered in a matter of only months, Mukeshimana saw first-hand the fantastic lengths her fellow mothers and women would go to survive some of the greatest horrors in human history.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">At 23, she was separated from her entire family, including her husband. She found shelter in a home where she was forced to hide under the bed of children who were not aware she was squeezed against the floor beneath them. Neighbors were spying on one another, and children were often the first to be interrogated: did they hear unusual voices? Were their mothers suddenly not giving them leftovers?. It was an easy way to find out if those parents were harboring refugees.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">When her labor began, Mukeshimana was all alone. \u201cI didn&#8217;t know what to do. I knew I had to cut the umbilical cord. I didn&#8217;t have any help. I actually used a rusty old knife. That&#8217;s all I could do,\u201d she said Friday at the 5th Annual Women in the World Summit at Lincoln Center in New York City.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">The baby survived, she said, \u201cand I survived somehow.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">Mukeshimana did not merely survive. She triumphed, and the most amazing part of her story is that she is not unique. Indeed, she is typical: In the wake of the Rwandan genocide, it was the women\u2014the widows, the orphans, the newly childless\u2014who led the rebuilding and of a country soaked in the blood of 800,000 to 1 million of its citizens.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">\u201cWe had women survivors of genocide. We had women coming as refugees,\u201d said Oda\u00a0Gasinzigwa, Rwanda&#8217;s Minister of Gender and Family Promotion. \u201cWe had women come together and saying &#8216;Enough is enough. How can we rebuild our country?&#8217; The choice was to do it differently. The women came together and said, we have widows, we have orphans, we need to work together.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<section><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"ytplayer16964904559470677\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WVaUQ_FTm0w?fs=1&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;showinfo=0\" height=\"392\" width=\"588\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/section>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">Rwandan women took active roles in the social and emotional reconciliation of their devastated country. They also helped redraft the nations\u2019 constitution. As a result, women in Rwanda hold a remarkable amount of power. They make up 64 percent of parliament, 40 percent of the cabinet, and more than 50 percent of the judiciary.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">None of this happened quickly. At first, especially, \u00a0\u201cWe had to encourage women to speak,\u201d says Ambassador Fatuma Ndangiza, deputy chief executive officer of the Rwanda Governance Board. At the local level, women councils were created for women to feel comfortable to start sharing their voices and expressing their ideas for what they want to see in government. \u00a0But even then it was not easy, Ndangiza said: \u00a0\u201cA woman we encouraged to run at local level said, I&#8217;ve never chaired a meeting in my own home, how can I do it in my village?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">Giving women a greater voice in government and society has benefitted both sexes. \u201cThe empowerment of women was the empowerment of all the people at the same time,\u201d says Professor Mathilde\u00a0Mukantabana, Rwandan ambassador\u00a0to the U.S.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">And women&#8217;s role in the rebuilding of Rwanda may set a precedence for the rest of the world to follow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">\u201cWe tend to think this is the story just of Rwanda, but this is the story of the world,\u201d said Swanee Hunt, former U.S. ambassador to Austria and founder and chair of The Institute for Inclusive Security. \u201cI know there are women with the same drive. They are highly, highly motivated because they want security for their children. They work across the line. They are seen as less threatening because they weren&#8217;t the ones wielding the machetes, so they have a way of assuming power that men don&#8217;t have.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: medium;\">\u201cI feel Rwanda is less corrupt is because we have men and women,\u201d says Ndangiza. \u201cWe don&#8217;t steal. We have shown society that the moment women are in charge, the country is peaceful. It is an economic dividend. It is the social dividend. It is the way to go.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&gt;via:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/witw\/articles\/2014\/04\/04\/the-triumph-of-rwanda-s-women-they-tell-witw-how-they-rebuilt-their-country.html\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/witw\/articles\/2014\/04\/04\/the-triumph-of-rwanda-s-women-they-tell-witw-how-they-rebuilt-their-country.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; APR 4, 2014 &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The Triumph of Rwanda\u2019s Women &nbsp; BY\u00a0EMILY SHIRE &nbsp; Two decades after genocide left more than 800,000 people dead in Rwanda, the country has rebuilt itself and the Women in the World summit hears how women played a huge part in that country\u2019s amazing success. Twenty [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[6],"tags":[4,12,11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176435134"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176435134"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176435134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176435138,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176435134\/revisions\/176435138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176435134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176435134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176435134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}