Several activities aiming at empowering rural women were registered across Lebanon yesterday.  In the North, the Safadi Association concluded an IT training for women as part of its programme entitled “my skills are the secret of my success” and implemented at the old Serail venue in Tripoli.  In Mount Lebanon, the “Home-Made” association concluded its first training workshop in the village of Kfarnabrakh in the Shouf.  The workshop is part of the association’s programme entitled “Empowerment of Women in Rural Areas” which is funded by the US Embassy in Lebanon.  In South Lebanon, the Central Office of Women’s Affair of Amal Movement organized a workshop on “the concept of participation in women’s empowerment project”.  The workshop was held under the auspices of Ms. Randa Berri who, in her opening address, reiterated the importance of women’s participation in political and public life.  According to Ms Berry, women need to take initiative without waiting for anyone to allow her to do so as their rights are enshrined in both religion and Constitutions.

Source: Annahar and Assafir, 13 October 2012)

The administrators of the “The Uprising of Women in the Arab world” Facebook group accused, last Wednesday, Facebook of censorship and of scheming to shut the group down, after one photo that was unexpectedly controversial. This photo first posted on Oct. 21, shows a young Syrian woman, Dana Bakdounis, her short hair unveiled, holding up her passport to show the photo, in which she wears the veil. Beneath it is a hand-written message which reads “I am with the uprising of women in the Arab world because for 20 years I wasn’t to feel the wind in my hair and my body.”
The photo, along with many others showing women unveiled, veiled and in the niqab, was removed from the group by Facebook on Oct. 25, without explanation, and the administrator who posted it was blocked from her account for 24 hours. Which urged the page administrators to issue the following statement: “The repeated temporary blockades on the admins’ personal accounts with no clear motive or explanation show a direct attack on the Uprising of Women in the Arab World’s Page. It also raises serious questions about the true intentions behind FB’s policies, and whether Dana’s ‘controversial’ image is a mere excuse to shut down the voice of the Uprising of Women in the Arab World.”
One of the administrators also told The Daily Star that: “There is something wrong with the administration of Facebook in tackling this issue. The person in charge of the content of the links and the photos ... they don’t ban [a photo] just because there are reports – they look at it. So there must be someone who’s really annoyed with the content of our photos.”

Source: The Daily Star 12/11/2012

ABAAD resource centre for gender equality and Save the Children concluded a training workshop in Beirut on how to use the “let’s play together for gender equality” package.  The training workshop that was attended by 27 participants, who work with children as well as the Ministry of Social Affairs, emphasized the prevention approach to raise awareness on gender equality and mobilize people to think critically so that they are more aware about gender stereotypes especially for people between the ages of 8 and 11 years.

Source: Al Mustaqbal, 12/11/2012

The weakness of the micro-credit sector in Lebanon and its inefficiency negatively affects women’s chance for economic empowerment since they tend to resort to this form of financial assistance to start up their small economic initiatives.  According to a new report published by the Economist, the weakness of government policies and political instability contribute to a failure in creating an enabling environment for microfinance as, according to the Economist, the Lebanese government is not able to regulate financial transactions of micro-credit institutions.  In addition, this sector is not considered to be a priority for the Central Bank of Lebanon especially since the former does not enjoy any mechanism for resolving contentious legal issues between lenders and borrowers.  As such, the Economic international monitor for micro-financial ranked Lebanon in position 44 out of 55 countries covered by the 2012 review.  Lebanon also ranked 11 out of 15 MENA countries included in the review and 12th out of 16 countries of middle to upper income, according to the weekly newsletter released by Byblos Bank last week.
However, the Economist noted that microfinance is still a promising sector with good prospects of extending in rural areas and noting that currently there are around 20 micro-finance institutions, all of which are non-governmental organisations based in the cities and not in rural areas.  The same sources indicated that the “Al Qard al Hassan” has some 69,000 clients and ‘Imkaan’ has 10,000 thus making these two institutions the biggest in the sector in Lebanon.

Source: Annahar 06 November 2012