In Pakistan's Hour Of Need, GenNext Responds

Maximum City, Minimum Opportunities: How Mumbai's Unorganised Women Workers Cope

Rasoolpur's Gang of Girls Take Charge

Purls of Comfort for Australian Women

Death Of A Male Child: Snapshots From A Maternity Ward

Anthropologist Ambika And Arunachal's Wildlife

Mother Care? 11 Filipinas Die Every Day In Childbirth

The Forgotten Women Behind The Commonwealth Games Sites

How Vijaypura's Single Women Got Their Rations

Out of Ladakh's Thin Air Comes A Film

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Australia
Purls of Comfort for Australian Women
Neena Bhandari

When Sally Madin retired as a teacher from Sydney's Cranbrook All Boys School she set up a knitting club to make jumpers and beanies for children in Ladakh and Nepal. Similarly Brenda Hazelwood, who coordinates the Brisbane charity, Nepal Australia Friendship Association, has between 80 and 100 women who create colourful woollies for disadvantaged children in Nepal. From the elderly, who have rediscovered their love for knitting, to young professionals, who missed out on learning the craft because it was considered old fashioned, women are signing up for courses at knitting clubs across Australia that, unlike a book or movie club, provide a platform to socialise while creating something for others.

"We have young mothers to grandmothers like me and even great grandmothers knitting from around the country. In June we sent over 500 items, mostly jumpers, for the four- to seven-year-olds in the pre-school in Shara village (Ladakh)."

[Photographs Available]

India
Death Of A Male Child: Snapshots From A Maternity Ward
Dr Syeda Hameed

She was lying with a 'dupatta' wrapped around her head that partly covered her face. An elderly woman was sitting by her side. All the beds were occupied by women with their newborns. I tried to spot the little bundle by her side and couldn't. I then asked for her register. Someone handed me a sheaf of papers... My eye caught a line scribbled in the corner of the case sheet, 'Body of male child handed to parents at 7:45 am'. I felt my eyes stinging with tears... The record of the case stated 'Intra Uterine Death'... This is how Syeda Hameed, Member, Planning Commission, describes her meeting with a grieving young mother in a public hospital. She then argues that all this talk of population stabilisation will not lead anywhere if India cannot ensure the survival of its newborns, and to achieve that one has to begin with the survival of the girl child.

"This was my second pregnancy. I have a girl at home. This was ... a boy."

India
Anthropologist Ambika And Arunachal's Wildlife
Hema Vijay

As she trekked to Taflagam, the last village on the Indo-China border in eastern Arunachal Pradesh, Ambika Aiyadurai was in for a shock. With her local guide, Lobinso, a young man from the Mishmi tribe, she walked into a traditional bamboo Mishmi home. Proudly displayed on the walls were rows of skulls of serow, barking deer, black bear and takin. Wildlife conservation may be a major concern today but for the tribes in the Northeast hunting is a part of their culture. The dilemma then is: Should a culture be preserved, or the wildlife? Both, says anthropologist Aiyadurai. The need of the hour is to tap into tribal knowledge and convert it into livelihoods that can benefit local people and animals.

"Understanding the reasons and realities behind our tribals' instinct for hunting alone can create sustainable campaigns against hunting."

[Photographs Available]

Philippines
Mother Care? 11 Filipinas Die Every Day In Childbirth
Perla Aragon-Choudhury

When a very pregnant Jean Cruz told her neighbour that she had not once visited a doctor during her entire pregnancy, she was shocked. Cruz, a housemaid, lived in her employer's home with her first-born and her husband, who was looking for a steady job. Later, she also had to ask her employer to pay the clinic where she gave birth. In the Philippines, many poor women are unable to access medical care during pregnancy, putting them at high risk of complications during childbirth. Like other countries around the world, the Philippines, too, has pledged to fulfill its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) related to maternal mortality by 2015. But the combined impact of poverty, limited access to medical facilities and inadequate hospitals and medical professionals, still results in 11 Filipinas dying every day during childbirth.

In the case of the Philippines, the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) was 209 in 1990 and 162 in 2005. But it seems highly unlikely that the country will be able to meet its MDG target of achieving, by 2015, an MMR of 52.

[Photographs Available]

India
The Forgotten Women Behind The Commonwealth Games Sites
Tripti Nath

Rajni and Chidami, a couple from Mau Rampur in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, take turns to attend to their two-month-old child, Aashiq, at a construction site near the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi. As Rajni gets busy digging, Chidami wipes his wet brow with cement laden hands to check on the baby lying on a bed of plastic bags. Workers have come from as far away as Jhansi and Warangal to build the glitzy venues of the upcoming Commonwealth Games. Among them are innumerable women, many of them young mothers. But even as they create state-of-the-art sports facilities, their working conditions and wages leave a lot to be desired. Contractors are intimidating, protective working gear is hardly forthcoming, there are no safety norms being followed on the work sites, creches are non-existent, toilet facilities are negligible and there is no shelter, either from the sun or the rain. Not surprisingly, many women workers wonder whether leaving their villages was really worth the effort.

"They pay us once a week, but only half of what is due to us. If we are to be paid Rs 770, they will pay us Rs 330. They will always hold back some cash."

[Photographs Available]