Volunteers with Corawill, Inc. travel from the US to Bulgaria in the summer to 'paint and play' with the 70 children ages 7 to 17 living in a social home in Vratsa. Institutionalization is very harmful for children and stunts their social and emotional growth. These visits are a very small but very important part of the children's lives. In addition, the building is decrepit and needs many updates.
You can read more about Corawill's visits to Vratsa by clicking on "Everybody Helps"
and "Visiting Vratsa." To learn about volunteering with Corawill, Inc., see the link on this page or visit our web site at Corawill.
The World Bank site explains, "The idea of the Decade emerged from the first high level regional
conference on Roma which was held in Budapest, Hungary in 2003. At that
event, prime ministers and senior government officials from Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, FYR Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, and Slovakia
announced their intention to launch the Decade. Their backing signals a
sea change in Roma policy and the political will necessary for reform.
Other countries are encouraged to join the Decade." This initiative is supported by This includes the Open Society Institute, the World Bank, the European
Commission, the United Nations Development Program, the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe, Council of Europe, the Council of
Europe Development Bank, among others, and most importantly, Roma
leadership, including international Roma organizations."
The 2000 film by Danny Verete, "Yellow Asphalt" ("Asphalt Zahov"), is a core component of my introductory cultural anthropology class.
The film was completed over seven years and stars the Jahalin clan (at
the end of the film, the credits include each Jahalin family member in
the film). It comprises three vignettes, each concerning the collision of
Israeli and Bedouin values in the Judean Desert. Every semester I think
about changing out the film and showing something more current, but the
fact remains that stories dramatize issued that are still relevant and fresh. Yes, the trucks are
dated, mobile phones and cell towers are absent, but the basic issues are
unchanged. Whether it be the 1950s, the 1990s or 2014, the
traditionally nomadic Jahalin tribe and the Israelis continue to clash.
''Yellow Asphalt,'' . . . was completed before
the outbreak of the second intifada a year and a half ago and does not
directly address the volatile politics of the Middle East. The expulsion
of the Jahalin from Israel in the 1950's, for example, and their
further displacement by expanding settlements in the late 90's, are
never mentioned. But the uneasy coexistence of Bedouins and Israelis is
as unmistakable a presence in the film as the dust and wind of the
desert.
Human Rights Watch released, "I’m Scared to Be a Woman" - Human Rights Abuses Against Transgender People in Malaysia, an investigation into the jailing of transgender individuals in Malaysia for cross dressing. This practice is illegal as it violates Sharia law. Furthermore, Religious Department officials have been accused of beating, humiliating and sexually violating those under arrest. In Malaysia, cross gender expression is a crime that allows government and religious officials to ignore human rights. In Malaysia, the term 'transgender" invites legal discrimination.
For the full article and links to the full report, read below or click here.
"Transgender people in Malaysia risk arrest every
day they step out of their door simply because of the way they express
themselves. The authorities shouldn’t be harassing and punishing people
just for being who they are."
Boris Dittrich, LGBT advocacy director
(Kuala Lumpur) – The Malaysian government should urgently seek the repeal of all laws and regulations that discriminate against transgender
people, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Transgender
people in Malaysia face criminal prosecution under laws that
effectively prohibit “cross-dressing” and discrimination in accessing
employment, health care, and education.
The 73-page report, “I’m Scared to Be a Woman: Human Rights Abuses against Transgender People in Malaysia,”
documents government abuses against transgender people in Malaysia. In
research in four Malaysian states and the federal territory of Kuala
Lumpur, Human Rights Watch found that state Religious Department
officials and police regularly arrest transgender women and subject them
to various abuses, including assault, extortion, and violations of
their privacy rights. Religious Department officials have physically and
sexually assaulted transgender women during arrest or in custody, and
humiliated them by parading them before the media.
Human Rights Watch conducted field research in Malaysia in January
2014 in four states – Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Penang, and Pahang –
and in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur. Human Rights Watch
interviewed 66 people, including 42 transgender women and 3 transgender
men; lawyers; HIV outreach workers; a criminologist, a psychologist, and
a medical doctor; a representative of the federal Department of Islamic
Development (JAKIM) and the governmental human rights commission
(SUHAKAM); and an elected state assemblyman. Human Rights Watch
contacted the Ministry of Health and the Prison Department about
policies affecting transgender people, but neither agency responded.
“Transgender people in Malaysia risk arrest every day they step out of
their door simply because of the way they express themselves,” said Boris Dittrich, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights
advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities shouldn’t be
harassing and punishing people just for being who they are.”
Muslims, who according to government statistics make up about 60 percent
of Malaysia’s population, are subject to state-level Sharia (Islamic
law) ordinances, in addition to the federal criminal law. Since the
1980s, every state has passed Sharia criminal enactments that
institutionalize discrimination against transgender people. All 13
Malaysian states prohibit Muslim men from “dressing as women,” while
three states also criminalize “women posing as men.” The laws, enforced
by state Islamic Religious Departments, do not define what constitutes
transgender dressing or posing.
Victoria, a transgender woman in the state of Negeri Sembilan, said she
was arrested in 2011 by Religious Department officials, who stripped and
sexually assaulted her: “They were rough. One of them squeezed my
breasts. I was completely humiliated. …They stripped me completely
naked. One of them took a police baton and poked at my genitals.
Everyone was looking – the men [Religious Department officials], as well
as the women. They took photos of my naked body.”
Many transgender women who are arrested are fined and forced into
“counselling” sessions, where officials from the state Islamic Religious
Department lecture them on “being a man.” Because the national
government’s Registration Department routinely rejects transgender
women’s applications to legally change their gender, Muslim transgender
women are vulnerable to repeated arrests. One transgender woman told
Human Rights Watch she had been arrested over 20 times.
Transgender women told Human Rights Watch that civil police are
sometimes directly involved in arrests, in some cases justifying their
actions on a vague provision in the federal criminal code that prohibits
“public indecency” and applies to people of all religious backgrounds.
Police also accompany Religious Department officials on raids against
Muslim transgender women.
“Malaysian authorities frequently abuse transgender women at the expense
of their dignity and in violation of their basic rights,” Dittrich
said. “It’s pretty clear that Religious Department and other officials
feel they can do whatever they like with transgender women and no one
will hold them accountable.”
While accurate figure totals do not exist for the number of transgender
women sentenced to prison terms, some of the transgender women Human
Rights Watch interviewed said they had been convicted and sent to prison
for terms ranging from four months to three years. Several of them were
placed in male wards, where they face sexual assault from both guards
and other prisoners.
Erina, a transgender woman who was imprisoned on an assault charge and
held in the men’s ward at Sungai Buloh prison from 1998 to 2000, said
she was forced to have sex without condoms with the warden “about two
times a week,” and with male prisoners. “I complained to the high
officers, [and] the sergeant, but they did not take action,” she said.
Transgender people in Malaysia also face discrimination and abuse from
other state officials and agents, including public sector health
workers, teachers, and local government administrators. When she sought
treatment for a fever at a government hospital, “the nurse didn’t want
to touch me,” said Sharan, a transgender woman in Kuala Lumpur. “I felt
as if I have a disease – if you touch me, are you going to become
transgender as well?”
Official discrimination is compounded by other forms of discrimination
for which the government provides little or no protection, Human Rights
Watch found. Transgender people have been fired from their jobs, evicted
from their homes, physically and sexually assaulted, and denied access
to health care because of their gender identity. Police routinely refuse
to receive complaints of violence against transgender people by public
officials or private individuals, or to conduct serious investigations,
transgender women told Human Rights Watch. In some cases, police even
threatened transgender complainants with arrest or sexually harassed
them.
While sex reassignment surgery was once available in Malaysia, a rise in
conservative Islamic influences led the National Fatwa Council in 1982
to issue a fatwa banning such surgery. Although the council’s fatwas do
not have legal authority, Malaysian doctors have stopped performing the
procedure.
The federal government’s Registration Department has since refused
dozens of requests by transgender people to change their names and
gender markers on their identity cards. This includes those who are on
hormone replacement therapy or who have undergone sex reassignment
surgery outside Malaysia – most often in neighboring Thailand – leaving
them in legal limbo.
Transgender women in Malaysia have filed a ground-breaking court case
challenging the Sharia law in Negeri Sembilan state, which prohibits
them from expressing their gender identity. The state’s Religious
Department has used this law repeatedly to arrest transgender women –
most recently, in a mass arrest of 16 transgender women
at a wedding party on the night of June 8, 2014. Three transgender
women have asked the court to strike down the law, which says that “any
male person who in any public place wears a woman’s attire or poses as a
woman” is violating the law.
The petitioners contend that the Sharia law violates provisions of the
Malaysian constitution that guarantee rights to freedom of expression,
freedom of movement, and equality. The Putrajaya Court of Appeal is
expected to issue its decision on November 7.
The government-appointed National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) is
drafting a National Harmony and Reconciliation Bill that some council
members have indicated will prohibit discrimination on the grounds of
gender, including sexual orientation and identity. However, no final
draft has been presented to the government, much less debated in
parliament.
Malaysia’s laws against “cross-dressing” are contrary to the
internationally guaranteed rights to non-discrimination, privacy, and
freedom of expression and movement recognized by the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, whose provisions are considered reflective
of customary international law. The abusive treatment of transgender
people by Religious Department authorities and the police violates
prohibitions against arbitrary arrest and cruel, inhuman, and degrading
treatment. Many of these international legal protections can also be
found in Malaysia’s federal constitution, such as the rights to freedom
of expression (article 10), equal protection (article 8), and freedom of
movement (article 9).
“Malaysia urgently needs to scrap laws that discriminate against
transgender people, adhere to international rights standards, and put in
place comprehensive non-discrimination legislation that protects them,”
Dittrich said. “It is high time that the authorities recognized that
transgender people have the same rights as all Malaysians.”
I enjoyed this cultural comment very much from The New Yorker, "Kicking the Bucket List."
While I love to go to new places, I equally love to return to places I've been before. Each time the experience get's richer, the friendships expand, I see new things, learn new bits of a place, or simply relax and soak in the familiar. Thank you Rebecca Mead for this eloquent piece.
Leadership Academy GLOW (LA GLOW) is a
week-long summer camp in Veliko, Tarnovo, Bulgaria for girls 14 to 18 years old. This camp was founded in 2000 by Peace Corps volunteers. It is now a Peace Corps Legacy program run entirely by female volunteers, mainly GLOW alumni who live and work all over the world. Their dedication to the spirit of GLOW is amazing. They work hard work organizing the camp, an online magazine and maintaining other forms of social media, and most importantly fundraising. I believe that the camp should be viewed as a gift each year to a the fifty girls who are selected to attend!
Through role
playing, seminars, peer-to-peer training, and by incorporating
energizers, games and themed parties, the campers learn about leadership
and empowerment. Many campers return as counselors or participate in social campaigns and leadership workshops throughout the year.
This past August, Corawill, Inc. volunteers participated in Leadership Academy GLOW for the third consecutive year. Our volunteers
included two high school English teachers, a university professor and a high
school student, all from Connecticut. It was an educational and fun experience and all are on board to return next next year. In the
future we hope to bring Bulgarian students to Connecticut to experience
our educational system. We thank all of the GLOW
staff for their help, but most importantly, for their friendship - see
you next year!
You can visit the LA GLOW web site here and also find them on Facebook. Below is a small selection of activities from this year's academy.
In a review of hairstyles seen at Fashion Week in New York, I saw that braids were all the rage, familiar looking braids! In 2013, our Humanitarian Travel Abroad volunteers were elegantly coiffed by children at a social home in Bulgaria. You can see one of their beautiful results here and compare with models from the New York Times article that follows.
New York Fashion Week, so last year!
The hair specialists at work, Assen Zlatarov social home in Vratsa, Bulgaria.
And from the New York Times . . .
From the New York Times, " Whether
messy, tame or somewhere in between, braids (along with towering hats)
are showing up in many of the spring collections being displayed on the runways this week in New York."
Volunteers with Corawill, Inc. (see tab above) in the US had another wonderful week with the children of Vratsa Social Home in Bulgaria. The home has 61 children aged 7 to 17, many with physical or mental disabilities. The children are so much fun and eager to teach us a few things as well as participate in our planned activities.
This year, two Bulgarian volunteers, Melani and Ive, traveled from their homes south of Sofia to join us too. Our volunteers conducted socialization and educational games with the children, art projects and planned a few surprises like a pizza party and a fresh-fruit-and-whipped-cream snack. The entire dining hall was painted by two of very hard-working and focused volunteers, Mat and David. Erica painted times-table "monsters," while everyone did the easy part of painting in the numbers! We think the overall result was very beautiful!
Many thanks to Tabitha Foundation for organizing our trip logistics - see you next year!
In Nepal, Circus Kathmandu helps empower victims of human trafficking. Their web site calls their circus "human rights in action." Circus Kathmandu powerfully demonstrates ethical, creative and
entrepreneurial alternatives.
Our model creates real life, inspiring success
stories, helping young people to take control of their own lives and to
also become human rights advocates.
According to Sky Neal, a circus
performer in Britain and the co-founder and co-director of Circus
Kathmandu, "performers are also now powerful advocates against human
trafficking . . . They also do workshops for children and speak to
hundreds of
villagers about their own personal life and what they had gone through.
The idea is to create awareness among villagers on human trafficking
and why they should not sell their children."
For the full article from BBC on Circus Kathmandu, click here.
While working as a flight attendant for Eastern Airlines in the 70s and 80s, I made dozens of trips to India and Korea with Americans for International Aidto bring 'home' children adopted by Americans from abroad. Here are photos of Chung, the very first boy I took to his new parents on November 10, 1977. Chung's family sent these pictures to me in a thank you
letter several months after his arrival. I had shared with them that Chung was very outgoing and had talked non-stop during the flight (of course, I understood not a word). His parents wrote: "We thought perhaps you would like to see how 'motor mouth' has changed. Grown six inches and gained five pounds. Still active and still conning everyone he can."
In his parents arms as I catch a flight home.
They were in the process of adopting again, this time from the US.
While in Korea I often went for overnight visits to Father Keane's St. Vincent's Home for Amerasian Children in Byu Pyung. I slept on the floor alongside the children. (See Amerasians: "Dust of Life"). I watched Prince Charles and Lady Diana's wedding back in 1981on a tiny black-and-white television with several of the younger kids sitting on my lap. I thought, rightly so, "I'll certainly remember this moment in years to come."
The term 'Amerasian' refers to children born of Asian mothers and (mostly) US soldiers stationed Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, and other Southeast Asian nations. They face discrimination by other nationals, often finding it difficult to find legitimate work. Why? They are considered American, not Korean or Vietnamese, and are sometimes denied citizenship rights. Outcast, abadoned, most never know their fathers and find life difficult.
A photo I took of Natasha in 1978 at Father Keane's
While viewing a TEDtalk recently I saw a link to a story told by photographer Rick Smolan of a little Amerasian girl in South Korea. Rick had met the girl, Natasha, while on assignment to photographh Amerasians in 1978 for TIME Magazine. Though only 28 and unmarried, he helped find her a home in Atlanta when her grandmother, Natasha's sole caretaker, died. I immediately recognized Natasha as a little girl as I had met at Father Keane's during one of my many visits. Natasha's story as told by Rick is, to use a cliche, 'heartwarming.'
Lunch time at Father Keane's
Over the years I probably escorted over 100 children from Asia and South America to their new homes in the US. I would spend anywhere between 20 hours and two days with the children depending on flights and connections. I rarely know what happened after I handed the children over to their new families in Buffalo, Minneapolis, or Portland and hopped the next flight back to my home base. I did receive an occasional letter from a grateful parent within months of our arrival, but I wondered how they adjusted, what was school like, and what did they become?
While I was not in any way part of Natasha's story, it is wonderful to see what a beautiful and self-assured woman she has become and to hope that all of the children I escorted found happiness, security, comfort, and worth, in their new lives in America.
According to Lumos, an organization helping children without caring families, around the world 8 million children live in institutions and of those, 90% are not orphans. For myriad reasons, including poor parenting, economic incentives, disabilities, children end up separated from their kin by choice or chance.
The institution pictured here is in Bulgaria and houses about 70 children ages 7 to 17. The playground is is comprised of blacktop and dirt, the windows have fencing, and the furniture is in bad condition. Those in charge do their best with what they have, but large facilities like this one cannot give the one-on-one attention that young children need to feel secure and loved.
The view of the 'garden' from a bedroom window.
This summer we are again traveling to Vratsa, Bulgaria to 'paint and play' at this social home - read 'orphanage.' We are brightening up their sleeping quarters with new paint and playing social and educational games with the children. We will also do art and writing projects. The children love physical touch, holding hands, plaiting our hair and holding hands. Many are talented acrobats and dancers.
Most of the children in this home are Roma, many have disabilities. In general, most Eastern and Southern European countries have made tremendous improvements in these institutions since 1989, but they are still 'institutions,' not homes, and the children living in them are not fully integrated into the community. They are instead stigmatized and sometimes they internalize a sense of rejection. One teenager on the cusp of leaving said, "I am Roma, Roma is bad."
Those of us from America often lack knowledge of and experience with the racially contentious milieu in which Roma live. However, 'Roma integration' is a priority for members of the European Union. In addition to the EU monies, integration programs receive assistance from private donors and NGOs in the US, Holland and the UK among others. Efforts have mixed success, just as does with integration of minorities in any country, be it the US or Iraq.
It's a story that accompanies any military action abroad, children born of local women and soldiers far from home whose paternity is formally unacknowledged. These offspring are subject to cultural, political and legal norms that often make positive personal, social and educational prospects out-of-reach. In particular, the first entered the Philippines in 1898, taking the islands from Spain. In the US in December, 1898, and in the Philippines in January, 1899, President McKinley announced his Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation assuring the natives personal, professional, political and religious freedom and protection, thus beginning a long, but not always benevolent, relationship between the people of the Philippines and the United States.
Here from BBC news is a look at "Philippines' Forgotten Generation" about the return of the US military after a 20 year absence.
In her Paris show, Iris van Herpen shrink wrapped models. The most asked question on Instagram: how do they breathe (through tubes). If the point is to elicit an uncomfortable, claustrophobic, visceral feeling of revulsion - Iris, you have succeeded. While your runway show received lots of attention, I, for one, cannot describe any of your fashion designs. Moreover, the fashion magazine Elle pictured two shrink wrapped women but no runway models wearing your new designs. In the accompanying article Elle applauded your inventiveness, but called the show "a chilling, super creepy display." In other articles I skimmed your clothes were also an afterthought to the girls in the plastic bags: eyes closed, fetal position, as if asleep, unborn, in their 'wombs.'
It is suggested the idea may have come from Lawrence Malstaf who shrink wrapped male and female 'volunteers' in an installation piece with "the intention . . . to encourage people to consider the threat to their survival and how they protect themselves when under threat."
While in Kolkata, India, visiting programs supported by Empower the Children (ETC), I was invited to a wonderful evening of music, dance and theater. The actors included children from the Preyrona vocational schools supported by ETC, as well as 'specially-abled' children from Prabartak Home. The 'children' from Prabartak are mentally or physically challenged, orphaned adults who find security, love and safety, a true 'home.' Their play concerned a princess who was captured by demons just before her wedding. She is taught how to fight and defend herself by a helpful woman in the demons' realm. She is able to save herself and others - a true role model for today's modern women.
The children from the vocational school performed a play with themes ripped from the headlines of Indian newspapers. One story involved maids demanding better pay and work hours, their leader a feminist from the community. The second theme was that of dowry. A young woman's wedding approaches and she is urged to not give in to dowry demands - after all, asking for dowry is illegal in India. The bride's mother-in-law is at first shocked when her son's new wife arrives without the long list of gifts she had requested. The mother-in-law soon sees the error of her ways and the play ends with a happy daughter in-law free of dowry commitments! Jai ho!
Below are a few scenes from both performances. The sets were beautifully constructed and the actors magnificent in their roles. Bravo!
I am back in Kolkata lending a hand at Empower the Children. It was so good to meet up with Reena and Ashit, teachers at the Preyrona Schools. Another volunteer, Roisin, is organizing an urban garden. We bought seeds and plants a few days ago. Yesterday, the children potted the seeds - green beans - and when they grow big enough the plants will be transferred to newly installed cement troughs on the patio of the school. After the potting project we spent some time working on a mural. It will take more time to complete the painting, all under Roisin's guidance, but I'm sure it will be beautiful when finished!
