Letter from Zainab Salbi
Welcome Rania Atalla

Dear Friends,

It is with great pleasure that I introduce you to Rania Atalla, Executive Director of the US office of Women for Women International. Rania’s arrival to Women for Women International marks the start of a new stage for the organization. This new stage embodies the organization’s commitment to sustainable leadership and our evolution into a global organization mobilizing women around the world.

This past year and a half we have focused on our strategic plan and vision for the future. After much research, analysis and study, we have solidified our vision for an organization that is focused on building depth and sustainability and that can be a strong voice in the global women’s movement and community. To enact this vision, we have brought on an Executive Director in the US office who will work in partnership with leadership in other like-minded organizations to further echo the voices of the women we serve in the local, national and international community. With Rania’s capable leadership I can also devote more energy and time to our offices and women in the field and balance that with my time and attention in the US office and our operations in the UK.

The opportunity to work with a great international leader such as Rania Atalla is a great privilege for Women for Women International and is a major step in the future of evolving and deepening the work of Women for Women International in each of the countries where we work. Rania comes from a rich experience in public policy and communication on an international level. While she was working on her Bachelor’s Degree at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, she interned with organizations like Amnesty International and worked for MERIP, Middle East Report in Washington, D.C. After graduating from Georgetown in 1986, she went to her native country of Jordan where she worked with Catholic Relief Services and Save the Children Federation. She was also a reporter for the English-language daily, the Jordan Times, for several years before she came back to earn a graduate degree in International Affairs from her alma matter.

Rania remained in Washington for almost a decade where she headed the Jordan Information Bureau—the public affairs arm of the Jordanian Embassy in Washington, D.C. In that capacity, she worked with Capitol Hill and different Administrations in the US capital in support of Jordan’s role in the Middle East peace process and helping shape US-Jordanian relations. In that capacity, she also interacted with the media, think tanks and various non-government organizations involved in the decision-making process in Washington.

In 1999, Rania moved to Jordan to set up the office of Queen Rania, and spent six years as the primary interlocutor and advisor for Jordan’s First Lady, developing partnerships with organizations on a local and global level and framing issues for the policy agenda. She also served as the Communications Director for King Abdullah, where she ran strategic communications campaigns on political issues locally, regionally and globally.

It would not be an exaggeration to state that throughout her career, Rania has traveled the world building partnerships and managing issues ranging from global politics, to children rights and women’s rights. She brings with her vision, seasoned leadership, extensive management experience and a strong appreciation for public service.

Please help me in welcoming a wonderful leader and a partner in our efforts in promoting the plight of women survivors of wars worldwide, Rania Atalla. Many of you have probably heard me quote my favorite poet Rumi. I often quote one of his poems where he says:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about language, ideas, even the phrase each other doesn’t make any sense.

My friends, with the arrival of Rania to join so many women around the world, we are not only expanding that field Rumi refers to but we are making it that much more powerful.

Zainab Salbi

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Elizabeth - A Mother Who Was Willing to Give Her Life Just so Her Daughter Could Attend Primary School

Elizabeth, on the right, and her daughter
Athieng of Southern Sudan

The women of Southern Sudan are fighting a silent war that reaches beyond the country’s political unrest. They are struggling and fighting for an education.

Meet Elizabeth. She is a Southern Sudanese woman who just a few months ago couldn’t read or write. In fact she even had no idea how to hold a pen, yet she is helping rewrite Southern Sudan’s history.

In Southern Sudan a woman’s value is based on how many cows your family can get for your marriage. So the moment a young girl reaches puberty she is taken out of school and married off to a stranger in exchange for cattle, the traditional dowry among Southern Sudanese people.

Elizabeth had higher hopes for her daughter. She wanted her to get an education.

Elizabeth did the unthinkable. She hid her daughter (she is still too frightened to reveal to anyone where she kept her) and told the men in her family, “No. I want Athieng to have an education.”

She was beaten by her husband, her brothers, and her father. Her brothers. And her father. She was imprisoned for months and she put her life on the line simply so her young daughter, Athieng, could attend primary school.

Elizabeth endured the torture because she knew that her own life of work brewing beer and tea – for which she did not get paid – was due to a lack of education. “I would do anything to spare my daughter the same type of life.”

Perhaps even more startling is that when Athieng, a mere child, heard of the violence her mother was enduring on her behalf. She wanted to get married just to save her mother. In fact, both Elizabeth and Athieng were ready to die to save the other.

Elizabeth was released from prison – but her struggles were just beginning.

Although Athieng was allowed to continue her education, Elizabeth’s husband and family shunned her. They cast her out of the family and the community, leaving her with her 5 other children.

Elizabeth and her children were left with absolutely nothing. No home or shelter of any kind. No food. No clothes.

With absolutely nowhere else to go, Elizabeth came to Women for Women International.

Through generous donations and sponsorships Women for Women International was able to provide Elizabeth with important skills training and rights awareness. Elizabeth gained the skills needed to envision a future. “Now I can imagine a tomorrow that could be better than today. Now I can see possibilities.”

“It is amazing to see the courage and resilience of these women. Despite the trauma they have endured. In spite of the nothingness that surrounds them, they have a real sense of possibilities. These women want to make change happen. They want a better future. They want to end the cycle of suffering – and they know the way to do this is through education.” says Judithe Registre, who opened our Sudan Office.

Elizabeth now works cleaning airplanes and says, “My life is improving. Before I had nothing in my mind. My world. Now I know how to hold a pen and write my name. I have a job. I can give my children something. I can pay for them to go to school.”

Athieng is still in school and working hard. Her dreams are no longer limited by the men in her family. Her value is no longer determined by cows. She hopes to be a lawyer so she can defend people’s rights and help end the cycle of suffering in Sudan.

“For me I didn’t know how to read and write, but I see how these people are better off that have an education. I want my daughter to have this better life.”

Elizabeth and Athieng inspire us and teach us yet again of the power of women and mothers everywhere. We wish you and the important women in your life a happy and meaningful Mother’s Day. To learn more about Elizabeth and Athieng visit: www.womenforwomen.org/mothersday.

Iraqi Field Report

Our most recent visit to Iraq and reports from our staff there reveals a country in chaos, where death and mutilation, violence and the absence of security and personal safety are an everyday fact of life for millions of people. In the midst of the turmoil stands courageous staff and committed participants that are desperate for normalcy.

The women we interviewed told us that security is their number one concern, but at the same time, they also have to deal with a lack of job opportunities, rising costs, and diminishing education and health services.

The women of Iraq

During our visit we saw firsthand that our best hope for the country is in the brave new generation of women who have remained in Iraq despite all the obstacles in their paths, determined to work for a better future. We have to hold on to them and do everything we can to help them so that courageous people like the women on our staff of Women for Women International in Iraq not only survive, but prosper.

Everything in Iraq is a fight. If you don’t get killed with a bomb or a bullet, you end up struggling to get even the basics of life. A few years back, an Iraqi did not think much about the price to fill his or her car with gasoline. The price was so minimal, people rarely thought about it in their monthly budget—20 liters of gasoline cost about $1. Today, 20 liters of gasoline costs about $20 on the black market or about $10 at the government price. “You are lucky if you can get it even with the high price,” a colleague explained. “Can you believe it? We are having a shortage of gasoline in Iraq.”

But gasoline is not the only thing that is expensive. Food is another category that quadrupled in its expense, especially as the farming community is almost destroyed. Most farmers in Iraq have abandoned their farms. They can’t get clean water because there is no electricity to run the pumps. The price of fuel for tractors and other equipment is too much for many farmers, and many can’t get the fertilizers and other items that make their farms run. The combination of these things means that Iraq is now importing almost all of its food and the prices have skyrocketed.

The story gets even worse when it gets to medicine and the health care. A doctor’s visit used to cost about $1 a few years ago, now it is about $10. Giving birth in the hospital used to be free, now it costs about $800, leaving many women to refer to traditional midwives for assistance.

Medicines used to be free, subsidized by the government. Now, they are incredibly expensive. One course of antibiotic alone runs about $200. When Saba, the 18-year-old daughter of a Women for Women International-Iraq staff member was randomly shot while sitting in a taxi in December 2007, it cost the family about $800 just to get her the blood and the basic medicine she needed while at an Iraqi hospital for one day. According to her father, “All of that and no doctors were able to visit her.”

The young woman stayed in the hospital for about 24 hours wrapped in a blood-soaked blanket. With the tremendous help and assistance of Women for Women International friends and supporters, she was able to be transferred to the American-run hospital in Iraq, where she received treatment but remains paralyzed from the neck down. Her family could no longer go back to their home because they were threatened for having communicated with the Americans who treated their daughter.

The women of Iraq

Now the family is in Jordan, waiting for their turn to be refugees somewhere in the world, and shocked at the fate of their daughter. Saba can’t sleep anymore. She is afraid and every night has nightmares. “I am left paralyzed for what?” she said. “I have nothing to do with politics. I have nothing to do with anything. I was simply trying to finish my studies and to live my life.”

All too often in Iraq these days, innocent people like Saba are struck down simply for trying to live their lives.

When we asked a group of women what they would do if they were in charge of the country, one of them said “We will address the poverty situation in Iraq which is impacting us the most.”

“If I was the president of the country, I would make filling the stomachs of the people as my utmost priority,” Shatha, a woman participant, said. “We are dealing with a situation in which you cannot get a job anywhere without paying a bribe. During Saddam’s time, our sons used to run away from the military and he would punish them in all sorts of ways for that. Now, we have to pay all that we have in bribes for our sons to enter the army for that is the only job available in the country.”

The third priority, they said, is getting the electricity back and rebuilding the infrastructure of the country. “Nothing can be worked without getting the electricity back,” one woman explained.

Finally, the women said they would focus their attention on education. According to one young woman, “If Iraq is indeed going to have democracy, how can we have a real democracy without educated people who can push the government of the country?” Another woman added, “Many are asking ‘why should I waste my money or my time sending my kids to school if they can’t get a job at the end of the day?’”

We are worried about the future of Iraq, a future that does not have educated professionals, artists, intellectuals, and activists as part of it, either because they have been killed or because they have escaped with their lives. The staff of Women for Women International in Iraq are heroes for staying in the country and continuing the struggle. We take courage from simply knowing we are giving women some venue for hope and an opportunity to stand on their feet.

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