I've been at a conference this week in the waterfront where speakers both locally and internationally have been sharing experience on what women have been doing both during conflict, in transition and post conflict. It has been very interesting. Joanna Lumley was the opening speaker and she spoke very eloquently about doing work for Comic relief in Africa.
The one speaker who's words really stayed with me were that of a women from South Africa. She was talking about being in Sierra Leone reporting on what had happened there. Which honestly was horrific, she spoke of one women being forced to kill her baby them mash it up with a mortar and pistol so the rebels could have ground meat. See what I mean quite horrific. There were many more storied just as bad and it made me thing that although there have been many horrific thinks happening in Ireland during the troubles there is another level of horror out there that other countries have experienced.
One of the underlying things that the conference wanted to highlight was that there are many woman's organisations that over the last 25 years have kept the fabric of their localities together, offering training and opportunities to women that would not have moved forward with their lives using any of the statutory provision. Now in 2008 the powers that be are basically saying that there is no longer a need for such women's training. Every one should just go to the technical collages. Anyone who has worked in community education know that this is not the case and the women's sector is lobbying hard to get Del to understand. Meanwhile time is ticking on and organisations are running out of money and jobs are starting to get lost.
While its understandable that everything simple cannot be funded, there is a great wealth of knowledge out there that will be lost. Opportunities that will not happen if match funding is not found.
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