Featured Stories
Aleeza Hafeez from Sialkot, one of Pakistan’s most industrialized areas, has her own income for the first time. Knowing her own rights and an enabling environment at the workplace made it possible for her to work and grow as a professional. The project has changed family dynamics too. Now, Hafeez’s father includes her when making family decisions, a role previously reserved for male members.
Mila Rodriguez is one of the young members of Colombia’s Cantadora Network, a network of singers using traditional Afro-Colombian music to preserve their culture and promote peace.
Sophia Dianne Garcia from the Philippines is a youth activist who teaches young people to advocate for their rights and for peace. She spoke to UN Women about what sustainable peace means for her, as part of an editorial series that presents the daily sustainable development challenges that people around the world face and how they are bringing about change.
Anny Tengandide Modi is a 36-year-old single mother living in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In July 2017, she joined the African Women Leaders Network, launched by UN Women, the African Union Commission and the Permanent Mission of Germany.
Irlanda Pop is the Mayor of Lanquín, a municipality in the Alta Verapaz department of Guatemala. She is the only indigenous Mayor and one of ten women Mayors in the country.
Through women’s cooperatives, a joint UN program provides training in agricultural techniques, improved seeds and time-saving machinery, while also granting loans and encouraging saving.
Qerim Emini, a 25-year-old man from the Ashkali community in Lipljan, Kosovo had heard many stories of young girls getting married in his city. As it was considered the norm, he thought nothing more of it. Normally, after a few months of marriage, the gossip from the teenage brides would turn to hushed whispers and tales of recent beatings. “Growing up, with every year of school, I began noticing fewer and fewer girls in my classes.”
Rukmini Rao, from India, is the founder of the Gramya Resource Centre for Women that tackles the issues of land rights for women, their right to education, and the prevention of violence against women and girls.
Matcha Phorn-in is the Executive Director of Sangsan Anakot Yaowachon, a civil society organization working with young people from marginalized communities, many of whom are indigenous, in disaster-prone Thai villages at the border with Myanmar.
Svitlana Moroz is a Ukrainian women’s rights activist living with HIV. She is one of the founders of the Union of Women of Ukraine affected by HIV “Positive Women” and since 2013 she has coordinated activities for the Eurasian Women’s Network on AIDS.