Sisters To Sisters

From the Jamaica Information Centre:

Sisters to Sisters, a charitable organization made up of women in the various areas of public life, including Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture, the Hon Olivia "Babsy" Grange, has donated approximately $8 million to the Women's Centre Foundation and the Bureau of Women's Affairs.

The presentation took place Friday (July 30) at the Women's Centre, Trafalgar Road, Kingston. The cheques were collected by Executive Director of the Women's Centre Foundation, Beryl Weir, and Executive Director of the Bureau of Women's Affairs, Faith Webster.

Maroon Chieftess - Gloria Simms

From the Jamaica Gleaner:

Maroon chieftess Gloria Simms has started a group to give voice to female Maroons as well as preserve and transmit their culture in Jamaica.

Simms, who is the founder and director of Maroon Indigenous Women's Circle, is from the Trelawny Town Maroons in St James.

Meetings started in 2007, but the group was formalised last year, and Simms said it could be the group's influence that resulted in the election of the first woman deputy colonel, in Accompong, St Elizabeth this year.

She said members hail from five Maroon villages in Jamaica, and numbered approximately 100 women, including those who work or reside outside the villages. Speaking confidently, she noted that those who have left the village are important because they have valuable views as well.

The chieftess is concerned that Jamaican culture is fast eroding, and is on a quest to ensure that future generations do not forget the rich history.

"When we look and see what is going on, we know that it is acculturation of our people taking on different cultures that were not designed for them, so sometimes it is hard for them to fit into other cultures and be themselves," she asserted.

Problem
Simms believes that the retention of the Maroon culture is also a problem.

"The culture that the Maroons preserve is sometimes based in the village, and the wider society is not being introduced many times to it and feel like they are an outsider to the culture."

She added: "Even as Maroon women sitting in the village, you don't know where your son who you have taught all the Maroon cultures is going to put his likeness in when he comes out as a youngster."

She explained that this could bring outside cultures into the village.

Simms said Maroon women still carry the sovereign integrity of what ancient African women used to be and the role they played in Africa as queen mothers.

"We need to take that stand and take that to our women," she said.

Aborting Women's Rights

From Carolyn Cooper @ Jamaica Gleaner:

"If men could get pregnant abortion would be a sacrament." This famous feminist prick (as in sharp point) goes straight to the heart of the current debate about parliamentary reform of Jamaica's backward laws on abortion. The reproductive health and rights of women are not taken seriously in much of the talk on this inflammatory subject.

Instead, male authority figures (and their female surrogates) pontificate on a pregnant matter about which they simply cannot speak authoritatively. Who feels it knows it, intimately. It is true that there are enlightened men who try to understand this contentious issue from the woman's perspective. But they are relatively few.

Data from the Ministry of Health confirm that approximately 1,200 women are treated each year for complications arising from unsafe abortions. And those are just the official figures. In the 21st century, women in Jamaica are still risking their lives in order to claim reproductive rights that women in other countries simply take for granted.

Phenomenal Women

From Jamaica Gleaner News:

Elaina Gonsalves
"... Gonsalves notes her most impactful accomplishment as the establishment of the unified non-bank financial institutions regulatory authority.

Jamaica is never far from her heart and in her work as a Methodist minister Gonsalves shares her experiences as a Jamaican woman in her interactions with women serving in the armed forces and counselling male/female marital relations."

Andrea Shaw
"Andrea Shaw is assistant director of the division of humanities and an assistant professor of English at Nova South-eastern University in Fort Lauderdale"