Human Rights Archives

How Safe Conversations Contributes to Global Feminism

Editor’s Note: As a practicing therapist, a feminist, and a writer on philanthropy, I am intrigued and inspired by Safe Conversations. I frequently refer families to the method as a part of therapy and find it has significant impact. In this article, Helen LaKelly Hunt, founding donor to many of the country’s women’s funds, discusses how this method has the potential for global impact as a part of feminist thought and practice.

SAFE CONVERSATIONS^®: CONTRIBUTING TO GLOBAL FEMINISM

By Helen LaKelly Hunt, Ph.D. with the assistance of Mary Leah Friedline

I: Safe Conversations and Its Potential Relationship to Global Feminism

Safe Conversations is a dialogue process that helps people learn a new way to talk. The relational sciences are teachable for first time in history due to the breakthroughs in the neurosciences in 1990’s. Safe Conversations helps people maintain connection while accepting difference. With this new development comes the promise of helping people build healthier connections and lasting relationships with spouses, partners, friends, and colleagues, among others. Safe Conversations is well poised to contribute to global feminism.

Michele Moore Joins Ford Foundation Executive Team

NEW YORK — The Ford Foundation has announced the appointment of Michele Moore as vice president of Global Communications. Moore will join the foundation’s executive leadership team in New York, overseeing all aspects of strategic communications across the foundation’s 11 offices in the United States and abroad. She begins her new role in January 2020, succeeding Alfred D. Ironside who helped lead the foundation’s communications efforts over a 14-year tenure.

michelle Moore — *Michelle Moore will become Vice President of Global Communications at the Ford Foundation. (Image Credit: PR Week)*

Moore comes to the foundation from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where she served as chief communications officer through a time of rapid expansion at the organization. The ACLU’s press coverage, social media following, and membership grew dramatically under Moore’s communications stewardship, which led to her recognition on PR Week magazine’s 2017 and 2018 Power Lists as one of the top communications professionals in the US. With more than 25 years’ experience, spanning the nonprofit, government, Fortune 500, and academic sectors, Moore brings vast expertise in delivering effective communications strategies in high-stakes media environments.

Michelle Obama Tours Asia to Talk about Girl Power

KUALA LUMPUR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Former U.S. first lady Michelle Obama on Thursday urged girls to resist the “imposter syndrome” she had felt on the way up and fight men for power, saying plenty of them didn’t deserve it.

On a trip to Asia to promote girls’ education, Obama contrasted her path to the top as a black woman with the easy presumption many men feel on their route to high office.

FILE PHOTO: Former first lady Michelle Obama attends the Girls Opportunity Alliance program with Room to Read at the Can Giuoc Highschool in Long An province, Vietnam, December 9, 2019. (Photo Credit: REUTERS/Yen Duong)

“I am telling you, there are a lot of people who don’t belong there,” Obama said, drawing laughter from the crowd.

Plan Gets Largest Donation Ever, Announces Deeper Focus on Girls

One of the most significant trends in the women’s philanthropy, and in philanthropy in general, is an increased focus on girls. Particularly on the global level, a growing strategy in philanthropy involves helping girls recognize and actualize their potential to lead, and by doing so make the world a better place for everyone.

*Plan International is using its largest donation in history to scale up and deepen its work that places girls at the center of social change across the globe. (Image Credit: Plan International USA*)

Into this evolving context comes an exciting new development: Plan International USA (Plan) recently announced a $12 million gift that will support the launch of programs that will reach 10 million girls globally over the next four years with improved access to education, opportunity, and health care. This is the largest private gift to date that Plan has received, and comes as a bequest from an anonymous donor. The historic donation will help support GirlEngage, Plan’s new programmatic model aimed particularly at girls.

US Plays Hostile, Obstructive Role at UN, More of Same Likely in 2020

Editor’s Note: This opinion piece was written by Barbara Crossette of PassBlue and was originally published on November 26, 2019.

It did not take long after the 74th General Assembly session opened this fall for the Trump team to signal that its strategy in key United Nations meetings would be to act as uncooperative and obstructive as possible, especially on human-rights agendas.

Valerie Huber, a senior adviser to the Department of Health and Human Services, is one of the UN delegates appointed by Trump who is playing a hostile role and working to restrict reproductive health care for women. (Image credit: Youtube Point of View talk show)

The 2019-2020 UN year — September to September — is likely to be remembered as eventful. It includes the 25th anniversaries of two landmark international conferences that greatly advanced the rights of women, making those gains targets of Republican politicians in Washington, D.C. Plans are being made to celebrate the UN’s 75 birthday next autumn, with much uncertainty surrounding American financial and political commitments to the organization.

Feminist Giving News: Undercovered and Undervalued

We’ve started a new feature here at Philanthropy Women called Feminist Giving in the News. This service combs through the news online to find all the stories that are relevant to the evolving world of feminist funding and women-led approaches to social change, both in the for-profit and nonprofit realms.

Marginalized and Forgotten: Feminist Giving News

There are many press releases being produced every day in feminist giving news. We really can’t even keep up with them here, which speaks to how needed this service is for the world.

How Will Facebook Conduct its Data Mining on Women?

An important new question has arisen about the “superpowers” of Facebook and how they will use these powers for good.

Facebook attended this year’s U.N. General Assembly and discussed its five-year commitment “to use data to help partners advance progress on the Sustainable Development Goals — and it has narrowed in on gender data as the place to start,” according to an article on Devex by Catherine Cheney entitled, Inside Facebook’s emerging gender data efforts.

“We mapped projects related to SDGs in the company, then got a sense for which SDGs are we currently working hard on, which are we missing out on, then turned to the future,” said Anna Lerner Nesbitt, program manager of global impact for data and artificial intelligence at Facebook. At a convening hosted by Data2X, Nesbitt asked, “Based on what we’re doing now and where the world needs to be in 2030, where are our unique superpowers?”

The Legacy of Jennifer Schlecht and the Tragedy of her Murder

The global reproductive rights community is reeling with the tragic and untimely murder of Jennifer Schlecht on November 6, 2019. A devoted and dedicated friend to women and girls everywhere, Schlecht had spent her entire career fostering family planning efforts for women across the globe. In recent years, she directed special attention to the need to provide family planning services for women drawn into humanitarian crises.

Jennifer Schlecht murdered domestic violence — Jennifer Schlecht with her daughter Abaynesh. The child’s name means “you are the Nile” in Amharic. (Photo credit: Women’s Refugee Commission)

In April of 2018, Jennifer Schlecht took a new position as Senior Advisor on Emergency Preparedness and Response at Family Planning 2020. For Family Planning 2020, housed under the umbrella of United Nations Foundation’s activities, Schlecht collaborated with CARE on these issues as well as the Inter-Agency Working Group on Reproductive Health in Crisis.

Natalie Deehan-Clark: Finding Comfort in Solitude

Editor’s Note: This interview in our Feminist Giving IRL series features Natalie Deehan-Clark, U.S. Communications Coordinator at the Center for Renewable Energy and Appropriate Technology for the Environment (CREATE!). From 2017-2018, Natalie traveled the world solo to explore sustainable solutions and community empowerment in developing countries. Natalie values storytelling as a catalyst for social change, particularly for equality and sustainability movements.

1. What do you wish you had known when you started out in college that you now know?

Calling All Movement Makers: This Global Women’s NGO Needs You!

The Women’s Global Education Project (WGEP) is challenging every philanthropist and feminist to “Become a Movement Maker.”

WGEP’s one-million-dollar campaign will enable 20,000 girls in remote areas of East and West Africa to get an education. WGEP notes that despite recent gains, women still comprise two-thirds of the world’s illiterate population, and are less likely than boys to attend school. In rural Africa, the situation is particularly bad: only 15 percent of girls graduate from high school.

Credit: Women’s Global Education Project

In its “Become a Movement Maker” campaign, WGEP is appealing to all sectors of the philanthropy community, particularly women donors and family foundations. According to WGEP, Movement Makers “will embark on an exclusive insider’s journey of our growth efforts, culminating with a global celebration in Kenya in the spring of 2021.”

Category: Human Rights