An Irish lady in Tamil Nadu, a school, and an animal farm
Image: Amanda Murphy with son Teddy
Madurai, India
Why did Amanda Murphy, a 28-year-old woman, leave her hometown of Belfast in Ireland to set up a school in faraway Thirumangalam in southern Tamil Nadu?
The answer lies in the simple question a small boy asked her at an orphanage in Madurai, which Murphy was visiting with her friend Anita Roddick in 1990, when the duo was undertaking some volunteer work while traveling through India.
At the ‘Boys Town’ orphanage, one of the children asked Amanda, “You speak so well, why don’t you build us a school and teach us”?
Amused and moved at the same time, the former veterinary student replied, “Sweety, I am not a teacher and I don’t have the money”.
But 20 years down the line, Amanda has not only built a school for over 700 students in the area, she also runs a $2.5 million business which provides employment to over 1,000 locals in this Tamil Nadu town.
She runs a $2.5 million business
Image: The tailoring unit
Before deciding to move to India, Amanda had completed two years at the Royal Veterinary College in London; she could not clear her exams in the third year as she was busy nursing her then boyfriend, who was suffering from multiple sclerosis.
Even after she returned to London, Amanda could not forget the boy’s simple question. After dropping off her friend Anita at her residence, she sat in her car for nine hours, lost in thought.
The solution to her predicament came from an unexpected quarter. Anita’s husband Gordon, who was the managing director of the ‘Body Shop’ line of products, saw her sitting there and asked her why she hadn’t gone home.
After hearing her story, Gordon showed her a wooden massage roller. “Why don’t you go back there,” he said, “This particular wood is available there. Make me 2,000 rollers in six months. I will buy them from you. You can start building your school.”
So Amanda quit her job in London, packed her bags, moved to Tamil Nadu and started making wooden massage rollers.
Soon, Amanda’s modest carpentry unit to manufacture massage rollers diversified into the business of home furnishing. The company today also has a tailoring unit which makes bags from organic cotton clothes.
A company with a difference
Image: The furniture manufactured by Amanda’s company
“There is a flow chain to ensure that everybody gets the benefits, nobody is exploited, there is no animal testing and no child labour,” she explains passionately.
Amanda has been trying to make a difference and practice a policy of inclusiveness even while running her school and company.
Of the 700 children in her school, 80 are differently-abled, and have special teachers to help them. Forty personnel of her 1,000-odd workforce are differently-abled; ten of them are HIV positive.
Her three companies — Teddy Exports, Murphy Products and Happy Wood — employ nearly 600 women. The companies also have a day-time medical clinic with four doctors, two nurses and HIV counselors.
Amanda also has a farm section with its own staff, six horses, 50 dogs, ducks, hens and donkeys. “The farm section is for love. I keep many animals so that there is someone to love me,” she says with a twinkle in her eyes.
She continues to take life head one with the same spirit and passion that made her shift continents and settle in India two decades ago. A car accident in 2002 killed her husband and left her in a wheelchair for three-and-a-half years, but she continues to fight on, running her school and companies with the same zeal.
Amanda has two daughters and one son, who study in a boarding school.
“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance,’ states a slogan etched in large, bold letters across one of the walls of her school.
Amanda’s personal cabin is surprisingly small for someone running such diverse and challenging operations. But the office space matters little, as it is easy to see that the lady has her heart in the right place.
Reference Link
http://news.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/mar/06/slide-show-1-an-irish-lady-who-runs-a-tamil-nadu-school.htm
Three-way kidney transplant success
Step back to nine in the morning on 4 December 2009.
Six patients are ready for surgery at three different hospitals across the UK.
It is the culmination of months of preparation and a remarkable event in the history of live organ donation in this country.
This is a three-way kidney swap between couples who’ve never met.
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 It’s a threefold thing really so it’s a real good feelgood factor all round  Lisa Burton, who donated a kidney
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In Aberdeen, 54-year-old Andrea Mullen suffered sudden kidney failure three years ago.
It had a devastating impact on her life. She had to have dialysis three times a week.
She said: “It was just an existence, it really was.
“It was terrible being ill all the time. As far as I was concerned it just ruined my life. It just totally ruined my life and I hated it.”
Her husband Andrew, 53, was prepared to donate one of his healthy kidneys but he wasn’t a match.
Six hundred miles away in Hastings on the south coast of England, there was a similar story. Chris Brent, 42, also needed a transplant.
His sister, Lisa Burton, who is 45, was happy to give him one of her kidneys, but again there was no match.
And in St Albans in Hertfordshire, newly-wed Lynsey Thakrar, 30, wanted to donate one of her kidneys to her husband Teemir, but she too wasn’t a compatible donor.
Precious gift
The solution – to pair up the couples – has only been possible since a change in the law in 2006.
Under strict supervision the Human Tissue Authority now allows so-called pooled transplant arrangements – matching up couples all over the country.
When Chris Brent heard about the change he was desperate to be involved. “I jumped at the chance to get a new kidney,” he said.
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In the US they are already doing up to 12 pairs at once – so that’s something to aspire to Renal surgeon Vassilios Papalois
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Teemir felt the same. “Even though I knew I wouldn’t be getting my wife’s kidney, you’re effectively going to be getting a kidney from somebody that is doing the same for their loved one. So it was just an amazing thing that could happen.”
The surgery took place at two hospitals in London – Hammersmith and Guy’s and St Thomas’ – and the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh.
It required enormous planning. Three kidneys removed from healthy patients, transported all over the UK and transplanted into the recipients on the same day.
Vassilios Papalois, consultant renal surgeon at Hammersmith, said: “The surgery was a success and I hope we can do more paired and pooled transplants. In the US they are already doing up to 12 pairs at once – so that’s something to aspire to.”
The result of the surgery has been dramatic. Three months on all six patients are doing well.
Quality of life
In Hastings, Chris Brent, who had seven years on dialysis, lost his job and became depressed, says the transplant has given him a chance for a new start in life.
“Literally as you wake up out of the anaesthetic you feel better,” he said.
“I just want to live a fairly normal life again. Go back to work, get out and about more. Have a life rather than just existing.”
In Aberdeen, Andrea and Andrew are planning their first holiday in years.
“I feel like I’ve got my life back,” said Andrea. “I’ve got more energy. I’m eating better and it’s great.”
And in St Albans, Teemir and Lynsey, who were married last year, say they are now ready to start a family.
“Now that I’m off dialysis,” says Teemir, “the future is a normal family life. In time we hope to have children. It’s something we couldn’t contemplate this time last year.”
As for the donors, they all say they are proud to have given up one of their kidneys – even if they have ended up in strangers they’ve never met.
“I’m absolutely delighted that Chris can have a normal life now,” says his sister Lisa, “and all the other people can as well. It’s a threefold thing really so it’s a real good feelgood factor all round.”
Complex
“It is a little odd,” says Lynsey. “But in the end it wasn’t that I didn’t give any thought to donating my kidney. It was that I didn’t need to give it any thought. He’s the man I love. He’s the man I want to spend every day of my life with. I want him healthy and if it means giving my kidney to a stranger so be it.”
Vicki Chapman, director of policy and strategy at the Human Tissue Authority, said: “These are the first transplants of their kind to happen in the UK. The HTA has to pay particular attention to these types of donation as the issues are particularly complex when more people and more centres are involved.”
There are 7,000 patients currently on the waiting list for a kidney transplant in the UK.
One in three kidneys used in transplants now comes from a living donor.
Reference Link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8552162.stm
A Little Black Box to Jog Failing Memory
PITTSBURGH, United States — On a cold, wet afternoon not long ago, Aron Reznick sat in the lounge of a home for the elderly here, his silver hair neatly combed, his memory a fog. He could not remember Thanksgiving dinner with his family, though when he was given a hint — “turkey” — it came back to him, vaguely, like a shadow in the moonlight.
Microsoft Corporation
KEEPING TRACK The SenseCam measures movement and takes digital pictures.
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Health Guide: Alzheimer’s Disease
Two years ago, Mr. Reznick, who has early-stage Alzheimer’s disease and is now 82, signed up for an experiment intended to help people with Alzheimer’s and other memory disorders. The concept was simple: using digital pictures and audio to archive an experience like a weekend visit from the grandchildren, creating a summary of the resulting content by picking crucial images, and reviewing them periodically to awaken and strengthen the memory of the event.
The hardware is a little black box called the SenseCam, which contains a digital camera and an accelerometer to measure movement. Worn like a pendant around the neck, it was developed at Microsoft’s research lab in Cambridge, England.
Vicon, a British company that has licensed the technology, is selling its version of the SenseCam only to researchers. For the elderly, though, it could herald a new kind of relationship between mind and machine: even as plaque gets deposited on the brain, everyday experience is deposited on silicon, then retrieved.
Researchers say the technology could benefit not just patients but also family and friends, helping them avoid the routine of repeating conversations over and over.
In Pittsburgh, researchers had Mr. Reznick go on three excursions with a SenseCam around his neck, and a voice recorder in his shirt pocket and a GPS unit. On one trip, he went to an exhibition of glass sculptures with his wife, Sylvia, his son and a granddaughter.
The SenseCam takes hundreds of pictures in a short period. When researchers began exploring it as a memory aid a few years ago, they had patients and caregivers look at all the pictures together.
Although the exercise helped improve retention of an experience, it was evident that a better way would be to focus on a few key images that might unlock the memories related to it. The interactive nature of that approach would give patients a greater sense of control over their recollections, and allow them to revisit past experiences rather than simply know they had happened.
To find the best memory cues for Mr. Reznick’s experiences, the researchers — Anind K. Dey, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and Matthew Lee, a graduate student — considered the types of images that had proved the most effective in previous SenseCam studies.
They soon realized that the capriciousness of memory made answers elusive. For one subject, a donkey in the background of a barnyard photo brought back a flood of recollections. For another, an otherwise unremarkable landscape reminded the subject of a snowfall that had not been expected.
Still, the researchers came up with some broad rules for identifying and retrieving images likely to serve as memory triggers. For a people-based experience like a family reunion, the system selects photographs in which faces are clearly discernible; for a location-based experience like a visit to a museum, it uses geographical positions provided by GPS and accelerometer data to judge what images might be most salient — for example, when a subject might be hovering at one spot, like in front of a painting.
Research groups elsewhere are experimenting with other techniques to summarize and make use of SenseCam data. Alan Smeaton and colleagues at Dublin City University in Ireland are comparing images to categorize them by activity — shopping, for example — so the system can put together a visual summary of the day. At the University of Toronto, a group led by Ronald M. Baecker is investigating the usefulness of complementing SenseCam images with an audio narrative created by a loved one.
Once the system selects some photos from the hundreds taken, the caregiver winnows down the candidates, adding cues like audio from the voice recorder, verbal narration and brief text captions. The final product is a multimedia slide show on a tablet computer that allows the patient to dig deeper into highlighted parts of some images by tapping on the screen. The first tap plays audio, the second shows captions.
“The design is intended to give the patient the ability to engage actively with the experience instead of simply flipping through some pictures,” said Mr. Lee, the graduate student. Testing the system with the Reznicks and two other couples, he and Dr. Dey found that it helped patients recall events more vividly and with greater confidence than when they simply went through all of the images.
Other SenseCam studies — also financed by Microsoft — have produced encouraging results, but plans to market the device as a memory aid have not been announced.
In December, Mr. Reznick clicked through the slide show of his trip to the museum, more than 18 months after the event. His eyes flickered with recognition at a few of the images. When he came upon a picture annotated by his wife, showing bricks engraved with donor names, he nodded and said, “I remember that.”
Then he handed the tablet back with a smile. In the haze of his past, a candle had been lit, however briefly.
Reference Link
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/health/09memory.html?ref=science
Courtesy
The New York Times Company
Light bulbs power Venezuela out of electricity crisis
It might sound like the start of a bad joke, but how many Venezuelan soldiers does it take to change a light bulb?
When the country is in the midst of its worst electricity crisis for 50 years, the answer is lots. In fact, an entire army’s worth.
On the Fuerte Tiuana military base in Caracas, there is a warehouse full of light bulbs. Hundreds of boxes of Firefly energy-efficient bulbs are sitting in vast stacks, ready to be loaded onto waiting trucks by the troops.
Meanwhile, the other half of the warehouse is a graveyard for used and spent light bulbs.
Huge amounts of filaments and broken glass have been swept into small mountains before being shipped to Venezuela’s second city, Maracaibo, for safe disposal because of the mercury content.
Outside the warehouse, a platoon of soldiers is standing to attention for their colonel before being dispatched to hand out the light bulbs in one of the capital’s poorest neighbourhoods.
“Today’s mission is vital for the health and development of the nation. And it comes directly on orders from the commander-in-chief,” barks the colonel.
Greedy consumers
There can be little doubt that the measure to swap over the country’s light fittings comes from on high.
It is part of an effort to tackle the fact that Venezuelans are the highest energy consumers per capita in Latin America – by a significant margin.
The recently nationalised state-run electricity company, Corpoelec, says Venezuelans consume more than 1,000 kilowatt hours a year per person than the second biggest users in the region, Chile.
Venezuelans are the highest energy consumers per capita in Latin America
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Unloading the low-energy bulbs into their knapsacks, the troops have been joined by volunteers from the local community council – pro-government teams set up under President Hugo Chavez.
These small groups of red-clad Chavez supporters and soldiers in green uniforms, referred to as “civic-military partnerships”, are heading into San Augustin, one of the city’s roughest parts.
“I’ve been doing this for a month,” says Miriam Parra de Gonzalez, an activist with the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
“People have reacted well on the doorsteps because it saves them money. The incandescent light bulbs wear out more quickly and these ones use less energy, so they last longer,” she says.
“Plus we’re giving them away for free!”
Changing attitudes
At a scrap yard and car wash tucked away in San Augustin, the manager, a Spanish immigrant called Miguel Alvarez Lopez, ushers us into a small apartment which he is currently renovating.
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For many years, we have had the huge oil income and, you know, you kind of get spoilt. You get used to an easy life Javier Alvarado
Corporelec president and vice-minister for electrical energy |
“In the business, I changed around 40 bulbs last week through Mision Sucre [one of the government’s social missions] and now another five today in this apartment.”
Asked whether it is the money or the energy he is most interested in saving, his answer is emphatic: “It’s the money,” he says – a response many in San Augustin would likely echo.
But Mr Alvarez is quick to add that “given the crisis situation we’re experiencing, it’s also necessary to show a little of the consciousness that we should all have in Venezuela”.
The president of Corporelec and vice-minister for electrical energy, Javier Alvarado, is confident that the current crisis is helping change public attitudes.
“For many years, we have had the huge oil income and, you know, you kind of get spoilt. You get used to an easy life,” he says.
Faced with such apathy and indifference among Venezuelans, he says the government has launched a ferocious public education campaign, to be combined with a carrot-and-stick policy for industrial and major domestic energy consumers.
Fines and rewards were applied last weekend.
But many are critical of the government’s response.
“It’s ironic that a country blessed as it is with the energy resources that Venezuela has, in both hydrocarbons and fresh water for hydroelectric power, is in the dire straits that we’re in right now,” says the general manager of the Venezuelan-American Chamber of Commerce, Carlos Tejeda.
The basic problem is that electrical capacity has not kept up pace with demand over the past 10 years, he says.
“The fact that we’re in these circumstances points to a lack of management, a lack of planning. That’s evidently the case.”
Switching off one at a time
The business community is concerned that the government’s energy-saving initiatives, such as forced blackouts and heavy fines for any company which does not cut its electricity consumption by 20%, will cripple Venezuelan productivity.
The hope is that energy use will go down
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“Some companies can reduce by 5%, or maybe 8% tops,” says Mr Tejeda. “But to cut by 20%, you can only do that by lowering production itself.”
Mr Alvarado concedes lessons need to be learnt from the current crisis.
“The fast increase in demand maybe caught us by surprise,” he admits.
“But we are investing extensively in thermo-electrical plants, and after these problems with El Nino, we will come out with a more solid, more robust power system.”
In the meantime, every light bulb helps, he says.
“We are 27 million Venezuelans. If all of us switch off one light, that’s 27 million light bulbs, and that’s what makes the difference. I feel sure that the solution is in the small details like that.”
Reference Link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8543469.stm
Courtesy
BBC News
A Female Approach to Peacekeeping
Cpl. Kehinde Dbadamoisi teaches biology in Liberia while wearing her Nigerian uniform. She said it did not intimidate students: ‘‘It’s the way that you interact with them that matters.’’ More Photos »
MONROVIA, LIBERIA — When darkness comes to Congo Town, women in crisp uniforms take the streets, patrolling with Kalashnikov rifles and long, black hair tucked into baby-blue caps.
Women in Uniform
In a yearlong series of articles, columns and multimedia reports, The International Herald Tribune examines where women stand in the early 21st century.
Members of an all female Indian unit of prepare for night patrol in Monrovia. More Photos »
The brisk sergeant in command, Monia Gusain, matter of factly calls them “my men.” But the stern Indian women facing her are actually wives and mothers who wage peace for a living on the rutted dirt roads of Liberia.
The women — part of a special female United Nations police unit from India — lead dual lives: stamping out street crime by night and standing guard under the steamy equatorial sun outside the Monrovia headquarters of the Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. When they retreat, home is a military barracks where they tell bedtime stories to their toddlers via video conference calls.
Together they form the thin pink line of a U.N. recruitment campaign for the 21st century. As it marks the 100th International Women’s Day on March 8, the United Nations is intensifying efforts to recruit women for peacekeeping missions that seek to mend what war has wrought.
The theory — which has evolved since pioneering female peacekeepers started participating in U.N. missions in the Balkans in the 1990s — is that women employ distinctive social skills in a rugged macho domain. They are being counted on to bring calm to the streets and the barracks, acting as public servants instead of invaders.
“When female soldiers are present, the situation is closer to real life, and as a result the men tend to behave,” said Gerard J. DeGroot, a history professor at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland who has written books about women in the military. “Any conflict where you have an all-male army, it’s like a holiday from reality. If you inject women into that situation, they do have a civilizing effect.”
As modern peacekeeping has evolved into nation building, the number of female police officers in U.N. peacekeeping missions around the world has doubled during the past five years to 833, or more than 6 percent of a force of 12,867. Nigeria and India are top contributors to a total that is still far below the international goal of 20 percent. In some missions — notably Darfur and Liberia — women are edging closer: Women account for 14 percent of the 1,354 police peacekeepers in Liberia.
Liberia — a West African country created in 1847 to settle freed American slaves — is something of a modern laboratory for the rise of women making peace. Women are marching in foot patrols; the head of the U.N. mission, Ellen Margrethe Loj of Denmark, is a woman; and the Liberian president, Mrs. Sirleaf, is the first woman elected as an African head of state, in 2005.
Mrs. Sirleaf — whose nickname is “Iron Lady” — is particularly blunt about the role of women in the recovery of her fragile country, which was battered by 14 years of civil war that left about 200,000 people dead and survivors haunted by torture, systematic rapes and the exploitation of drug-addicted boy soldiers.
“What a woman brings to the task is extra sensitivity, more caring,” Mrs. Sirleaf said in an interview. “I think that these are the characteristics that come from being a mother, taking care of a family, being concerned about children, managing the home.”
The softer approach is critical in Liberia. In 2004, a U.N. report criticized peacekeepers in Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Haiti for the sexual abuse of young women by trading food and money for sex. In 2005, 47 peacekeepers were accused of sexual abuse in Liberia, compared with 18 peacekeepers who were accused last year, according to the U.N. mission.
Top U.N. officials credit the arrival of women for helping improve behavior. Yet within Liberia, national peacekeeping units from different countries are still debating the best approach, tinkering with ways to best deploy female peacekeepers — or “blue helmettes” in U.N. lingo.
The contingents from India and Nigeria have both settled into Liberian outposts with contrasting approaches that raise a simple question: Should female peacekeepers be mixed with male peacekeepers?
The Nigerian Approach
From a dusty military base on Old Road, outside Monrovia, the capital, Lt. Col. Joseph Ogbonna presides over a battalion of men and women from Nigeria, the first country to send peacekeepers to Liberia, in 2003.
In a yearlong series of articles, columns and multimedia reports, The International Herald Tribune examines where women stand in the early 21st century.
The Nigerian women — who number 59, or 5 percent of 1,159 officers — hold largely traditional jobs, including working as cooks, nurses, supply clerks, police officers, teachers and refugee workers, said Colonel Ogbonna, who argues that women are more disciplined.
Some of the male peacekeepers joke uneasily that the women are getting too much attention. Brig. Gen. Ebiowei Awala said he notices a change in himself when women are present. He lowers his voice when talking to men and women, softening his language.
“It’s like any household,” he said. “When the mother culture is there, people change.”
The Nigerian women live in narrow barracks tacked with photos of smiling little boys and girls in frothy dresses left behind in the care of husbands or relatives.
The trade-off is adventure, financial opportunity and the chance to aid a weak nation.
“I came here to make peace in this country,” said Olayiwola Olanike, 50, a staff sergeant, nurse and mother of two who arrived five months ago and tends Liberian patients at a special free clinic. But the beginning was difficult; she missed her family, and the torrential rainy season was a thundering force. Malaria was constant, Sergeant Olanike said.
Charity Charamba, a Zimbabwean who is operations coordinator for the U.N. police, said she had almost turned back before leaving for Liberia because her husband and sons, 19 and 11, were miserable.
“It is a tough decision to leave a family, and this is why most female officers find it difficult to come to the mission,” Ms. Charamba said, recalling the tug of 2 a.m. telephone calls from her younger son demanding intercession: “Mommy, Daddy is not listening to me.”
In their peacekeeping roles, one of their usual duties is reaching out to other mothers and their children.
Cpl. Kehinde Dbadamoisi, 42, is an 18-year military veteran and mother of three sons ages 8 to 16. She wears an olive Nigerian uniform in a Monrovia classroom where she is deployed as a biology teacher.
Initially, the school’s principal, A. Darkpay Johnson, worried that Liberian students would fear the imposing woman in uniform.
“But you can see that when she asks questions, they answer,” Mr. Johnson said.
Outside the classroom, Corporal Dbadamoisi said her uniform had no effect.
“The children love us,” she said. “It’s the way that you interact with them that matters. If you can pass along lessons to students, they admire you.”
She said she had been drawn to Liberia for the challenge and the opportunity to do anything in the military.
Indeed, in some respects, Nigerian women have taken up so many tasks with the men that they have also shared the bleak side.
For many military and police officers from poorer nations, a main attraction of peacekeeping is a special allowance financed by the United Nations and disbursed to the home countries of peacekeepers. It adds up to about $1,000 a month, which — for peacemakers from third world countries — can be equivalent to five times their base pay.
In April, 27 Nigerian peacekeepers in Liberia — three of them young women — were convicted of mutiny by a military court and given life sentences for participating in demonstrations in Nigeria in 2008 to protest the embezzlement of their peacekeeping allowances.
The life sentences were later commuted to seven-year prison sentences, a much harsher punishment than for those who took the money. The Nigerian officers accused of embezzling $68,541 and diverting the allowances to another military unit were demoted.
The Indian Approach
Since early in 2007, Indian women have stood guard outside the president’s office on the main street in Monrovia.
It is a highly symbolic post, even for critics who complain that the women — whose English is weaker than their Hindi — have minimal contact with the local population.
“I don’t think women in peacekeeping have come across to the Liberian people,” said John Richardson, an adviser to Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president, who remains popular in Liberia although he is on trial in The Hague on war crimes charges.
In a yearlong series of articles, columns and multimedia reports, The International Herald Tribune examines where women stand in the early 21st century.
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Still, another close Taylor supporter, Cyril Allen — chairman emeritus of the former ruling party — sees advantages because of the country’s divisions.
“I don’t think that Liberian women should be carrying guns and standing in front of the president,” he said. “You don’t know where their loyalty is.”
The Indian unit of 103 women also plays a more unsung role, mentoring unarmed local Liberian police officers who must deal with the lingering suspicions of citizens who resented police participation in the civil war.
On the streets of Congo Town, a Monrovia suburb where crime rates soared after the war, supporters credit old-fashioned Indian foot patrols with cutting armed robberies by as much as 65 percent, according to Gostine Hallie, a Congo Town police chief who trudges on patrols with the women.
“Since we started foot patrols, the crime has considerably reduced, and we’re getting maximum cooperation from local people,” said Mr. Hallie, whose station only recently received electricity.
From their base in Monrovia, the Indian unit is also credited by the local police academy for encouraging increased reporting of sexual abuse and inspiring recruitment of Liberian women for the national police, which had 602 women last year, or about 15 percent of the force of 4,019.
Most of the Indian women were leaving their country for the first time when they joined the U.N. mission in Liberia. Their English is often shaky, but their commanders say they have established a rapport.
During the Liberian civil war, “it was the men who inflicted harm on women, and most of the time the sufferers were women and children,” said Annie Abraham, 45, the commanding officer of the Indian unit that just finished its rotation and was replaced by new recruits. “When you have male peacekeepers, you get the feeling that the women are more intimidated. Women aren’t as aggressive as the men. Women don’t speak as loudly as the men.”
The Indian contingent has brought along 22 men, who are the cooks, mechanics and drivers who support the female unit.
The abilities to drive a manual transmission vehicle and fire weapons are often critical barriers for female peacekeepers. The Canadian government and the Pearson Peacekeeping Center in Ottawa have donated vehicles and organized driving lessons in Ghana for peacekeepers.
On the street, the Indian women are perceived as sober and intimidating, but the biggest menace in the barracks is homesickness and depression.
To counter the blues and connect with Liberians, the unit organized Indian festivals, Bollywood dancing lessons and the “adoption” of a school and orphanage.
“That was the way we could reach out and build trust,” Ms. Abraham said. The idea, built on offering solace, is a strategy that the United Nations is preparing to study to explore the effects of female paramilitary units — particularly with Bangladesh poised to dispatch a new women’s unit of peacekeepers.
“We need to go deeper to study the impact that this is having and what aspect is really a good practice,” said Carole Doucet, the senior gender adviser for the U.N. Mission in Liberia. “We need to be careful about saying it’s fantastic. We need to know why.”
Some women have found the challenge of leading a life far from their family too daunting. As female participation grows, that issue will be critical for the United Nations, which is considering shorter, more flexible rotations.
“No more missions — it’s the first and the last because it’s difficult for me as a mother,” said Syalus Maharana, an Indian operations commander who finished her yearlong tour along with the daily ritual of mothering her 5-year-old son by hourlong video conference calls.
“He’s being looked after nicely and he is not missing me, but I am missing him,” she said. “He tells me, ‘Mama, are you using a mosquito net?’ He is advising me, and I should be advising him.”
Ms. Maharana came for the challenge, travel and financial opportunities, but she left Africa in late February with a few life lessons from Liberians, particularly one exotic notion.
“In India, a male child is preferred, but in Liberia they do not use methods to stop a girl child coming into the world,” she said. “For them, a male child and girl child are equal. I think that’s positive.”
Reference Link
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/06/world/africa/06iht-ffpeace.html?pagewanted=1&ref=africa
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