Search results for: violence

By Kelley Freeman

The Humanists of Houston are at it again! They participated in another awesome event for the Houston Area Women’s Shelter, like they did back in December. It’s always great to have a few organizations that you regularly support—people see your group consistently supporting them and they take notice.

On March 2, the Humanists of Houston participated in the Race Against Violence 5k fun run. They had about 15 people from their group participating in the race, and the point was to raise money for the women’s shelter. At $1,500, the Humanists of Houston were lucky number 13 in team fundraising rankings as of the day of the race. If you’re interested, you can help the Humanists of Houston by donating to their team page here, which will be live until March 31. What’s really amazing is that their goal was $500 and they managed to triple it by race day!

The Houston Area Women’s Center helps individuals affected by domestic and sexual violence in their efforts to move their lives forward. They provide shelter, counseling, and advocacy to support people in building lives free from the effects of violence. They seek social change to end domestic and sexual violence through community awareness and education. Services are confidential and available to everyone. Clearly, this is a vital resource to Houston and its surrounding area.

Great job, Humanists of Houston! We look forward to seeing what events y’all do in the future.

As Sudan divides into two and the oil-rich border state of South Kordofan erupts in violence, Peace Direct urges the international community to support local peacebuilders who are active and effective there.

The crisis in South Kordofan shows the limits of outside influence by the international community. Outside players are largely excluded from influence, the UN evacuated non-essential personnel from Kadugli when fighting flared in June, visas for foreign aid-agency staff are increasingly hard to obtain, and the UN peacekeeping mission UNMIS is winding down. It would seem that international presence and influence on the ground is waning, at a time when it is needed most.

Where external influence fails, an internal mechanism can be accessed instead: local peacebuilders. These civil society activists and organisations are already in place throughout the province, and continue to be active despite the crisis, with some notable successes.

Read full article here

ACTION: Forward this concept paper to relevant aid and political leaders

The next Darfur? (Guardian UK)

Fourth-quarter “Big Bang” beneficiary the AHA Foundation gave us this report on how they will use the funds contributed by members of Foundation Beyond Belief. Foundation members donated $2,750 to the AHA Foundation last quarter.

The AHA Foundation is extremely grateful to the Foundation Beyond Belief and its generous members for the donations made to our organization. These donations will help enable us to implement our ambitious agenda for 2011.

In the coming year, we plan to continue our legislative advocacy in Washington, DC, by working to ensure the passage of the Girls Protection Act, a bill that would amend the current female genital mutilation law to penalize those who take a young girl to another country to suffer this procedure. We are also developing a proposal to amend the federal domestic violence crime laws to provide protection to young women abused by their families. In 2011, we hope to engage directly with the law enforcement community to educate them about the unique issues involved in handling cases of violence against women committed in the name of Islam. We will be hosting a conference in New York City this spring to bring together experts in the fields of law enforcement and social services to discuss these issues. We are also developing a training curriculum for law enforcement detailing best practices for investigating and prosecuting cases of violence against Muslim women. Finally, we are working on a plan to begin measuring the number of women in New York City who suffer violence in the name of Islam. We hope to expand this data collection work to other localities in the coming years.

Thank you for your support and for joining us in our fight to protect and defend the rights of women in the West against violence justified by militant Islam.