Delaware Today
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This is a piece for Delaware Today about young girls losing interest in science,technology, engineering and math related studies. The state’s schools and businesses are hoping to turn all this around. I love it when I come up with a few sketches that I still want to use for something and this was one of those times. A big thanks to AD Kelly Carter!
A village in India plants 111 trees every time a baby girl is born
While in some parts of India, many expectant parents still say they’d prefer bearing sons, members of the Piplantri village, in the western state of Rajasthan, are breaking this trend by celebrating the birth of each baby girl in way that benefits everyone. For every female child that’s born, the community gathers to plant 111 fruit trees in her honor in the village common.
This unique tradition was first suggested by the village’s former leader, Shyam Sundar Paliwal, in honor of his daughter who had passed away at a young age.
But planting trees is only one way that the community is ensuring a brighter future for their daughters. According to a report in The Hindu, villagers also pool together around $380 dollars for every new baby girl and deposited in an account for her. The girl’s parents are required to contribute $180, and to make a pledge to be considerate guardians.
“We make these parents sign an affidavit promising that they would not marry her off before the legal age, send her to school regularly and take care of the trees planted in her name,” says Paliwal.
Over the last six years alone, as population there has increased, villagers in Piplantri have planted nearly a quarter million trees — a welcoming forest for the community’s youngest members, offering a bit of shade for their brighter future.
via Micropixie / The Hindu
Each week, the Guardian Weekend magazine’s editorial team chooses a picture, or set of pictures, that particularly tickles their fancy. This week, their choice is Anthony Kurtz’s No Man’s Job, chronicling the lives of female mechanics in Dakar, Senegal
“Kurtz, a young art and commercial photographer, was keen to draw attention to the struggles of working women in Africa, but says he wanted above all to create beautiful images.
~fairy~
SO CUTE!
Life With The Hijab By Sadaf Syed
① University of Michigan’s DJ Hadeel Al-Hadidi created and broadcasts her own hour-long radio program.
② Scholars teach that Islam encourages sports and physical activity for all, wrote Sayed. The prophet Muhammad is said to have invited his wife Aisha to a foot race.
③ Nadia Afghani, left, and Nadia Chohan make up Hijabi Deafness, a Muslim punk rock/hip-hop band.
④ Michelle Yim, a network engineer, skis, swims, body surfs, rides motorcycles – all while wearing the hijab.
⑤ Atlanta-based Mariem “Punchenella” Brakache (5-5, 1KO) is a former IBA Junior Middleweight Champion, boxing coach and renowned trainer.
⑥ A ballerina and tap dancer from Texas, Hiba Awad is anxious to prove “how versatile and unique a Muslim woman can be.”
⑦ Nousheen Yousuf said the practice of tae kwon do “taught me to treat daily prayers as a real meditation, where the focus is on my relationship with God.”
⑧ Nosheen Cassim, a part-time makeup artist and full-time mother of two, was born and raised in Illinois, but has been threatened by strangers who told her to “go back to where she came from.”
⑨ No matter how different they may look from other beachgoers, Sama Wareh, left, and Aurelia Khatib believe in doing what they love, including surfing.
⑩ Asma Azim, a step-grandmother from Pakistan, has been a manager of mechanics and a truck driver for more than a dozen years. She said her male contemporaries treat her with respect – especially when they discover she can repair her own engine.
Women Watching Stars (1936) at the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo
Ota Chou Women Observing Stars (1936). Ink on paper.
This really compositionally interesting because you can see the women are in traditional kimono with the short bobbed hair. This telescope depicted here happens to be the one at the National Museum of Nature and Science. So all and all they are modern because of their hair and are learning/inquisitive science. All very modern but still reserves of the traditional because of their clothing. TALK ABOUT MIXED MESSAGING FOR THE MODERN WOMAN!!! Though for the record most Japanese women by this time and especially after the 1924 quake would have had experiences with Western clothes and hairstyles. Fun Fact: This was made into a stamp in the 90’s.
Shamsia Hassani - An Afghan Street Artist
“If you have an exhibition, most uneducated people won’t even know about it. But if you have art like graffiti in the street, everyone can see that … If we can do graffiti all over the city, there will be nobody who doesn’t know about art.”
Afghan street artist Shamsia, 24, paints on the street walls in Kabul, Afghanistan. The young artist says she hopes her public art can have a positive effect in Afghanistan. A contemporary art painter, she took to graffiti easily despite the restrictions imposed by her gender.
An Indian woman, a Japanese woman, and a Syrian woman, all training to be doctors at Women’s Medical College of Philadelphia, 1880s. (Image courtesy Legacy Center, Drexel University College of Medicine Archives, Philadelphia, PA. Image #p0103) (x)
