Giving thanks...

All of us at One Million Bones want to thank you for your generosity, support, commitment and passion. We are grateful everyday for how much you do in this struggle we have for a more peaceful and just world.

As we prepare to spend a few days with family and friends, we think about how fortunate we are and then we think about people who are struggling. Our hearts go out to our brothers and sisters around the world, in Congo; in Somalia; in Burma and Sudan and Darfur; in Gaza; in Syria; in all the many places where fear and violence rule, and we know that while we have a difficult road before us, it is the right road to be on.

Take time to revel in your good fortune, and then join us again re-energized for the work.

All the best wishes from the OMB family.

President Obama in Burma

Just a quick follow-up blog from Friday's post.

Check out this blog from The New Yorker....

Some images and a single link for you, this Friday.

Burma...

The Rohingya...

President Barack Obama...

Now, take a minute and read this blog post from our friends at STAND, the student-led division of United to End Genocide.

One Million Bones in Las Vegas

When Misty Ahmic moved to Las Vegas, Nevada last October, she never expected she would be working in such a generous and engaged community. She arrived with the assumption, similar to what many people have about Las Vegas that the city would be consumed with partying and gambling. She came to Las Vegas to pursue her Masters in Public Administration in Nonprofit Management at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada. Misty came across the listing for the One Million Bones Nevada State Coordinator and went straight to the website where she says, “I was captivated by the images which brought art and awareness together.” Immediately, she knew she wanted to be a part of the project!  She is happy to find that working with the Las Vegas community on the One Million Bones project has changed her presumptions

If you were in Las Vegas last Friday for First Friday’s festivities, there was no way you could’ve missed the two One Million Bones Events! Las Vegas Academy’s Ceramics Club created an installation in the window display at the Contemporary Arts Center, pictured below. Led by students Blake and Jose, the club has really embraced this project often even meeting after school to independently make bones.

 

Just down the street was an installation of 8,000 bones, hosted by Clay Arts Vegas in their parking lot on Main Street. Music For Life Drum Circle performed as well as brought extra drums for community participation while Nabtry African Dancers performed interpretive dances. The installation featured guest speakers, Brian Kessler speaking about the Holocaust and Todd Kurylowicz, speaking about the conflict in the Congo. You can see a full write-up and pictures of the installation in Las Vegas Weekly.

These two amazing events proved to be inspiring to all in the Las Vegas Community. Misty and Clay Arts Vegas will continue to host bone making events at their studio on Main Street and Blake and Jose will continue to lead the Ceramics Club at Las Vegas Academy in bone making! Just within these last few months, Misty has engaged the community to make 10,000 handmade bones equating to a $10,000 donation to CARE’s relief work through our partnership with Students Rebuild! Misty will continue to facilitate bone making events in the area during the next couple months so if you’re in the area, let us know and we’ll put you in touch! 

It's not a special day but I'm thinking about...

Women. 

All of us here at One Million Bones are super excited that the entire delegation from New Hampshire, and the Governor, are women.  We probably don't want to get into conversations about if women are better suited to the work based on gender, we just want to celebrate that these women were given the opportunity to do the good work of our country.

And then I read this article about the first woman ever who was just nominated to the Cabinet for Somalia, Fauzia Yusuf Haji Adan. And, she while she hasn't been appointed, just nominated, it's important and historic. And it shows just how far we (that's a worldwide collective we) still have to go.

Consider this from a Unicef report on women and girls in Somalia:

"Education services in Somalia are provided by a variety of stakeholders, including Community Education Committees, regional administrations, community-based organizations, educational umbrella groups and networks, NGOs and religious groups. The role and reach of governments in overseeing the delivery of education has increased, albeit slowly. Despite major improvements in overall school enrolment over the last eight years, only 710,860 children out of an estimated 1.7 million (UNDP projection) of primary school age children – 42 per cent of children - are in school. Of those at school, 36 per cent are girls."

Mrs. Adan's nomination isn't without controversy in Somalia.  She ran for office in Somaliland (an unrecognized, self declared de facto sovereign state) and lost. And shortly afterwards was nominated by the new Prime Minister of Somalia. Running for office in Somaliland indicates support of independence, and accepting the nomination for Foreign Minister seems to contradict that. It seems politics plays that way everywhere. But nonetheless, it is an historic moment for Somalia, and it will be even more so if and when she is confirmed.

This paragraph from the United Nations Development Program is a broad statement for why we need more women in positions of power.

And this UN report, titled Women, Peace and Security, goes into a lot of detail.

This is the Forward, written by then Secretary-General Kofi Annan:

Most of today’s conflicts take place within states. Their root causes often include poverty, the struggle for scarce resources, and violations of human rights. They have another tragic feature in common: women and girls suffer their impact disproportionately. While women and girls endure the same trauma as the rest of the population -- bombings, famines, epidemics, mass executions, torture, arbitrary imp risonment, forced migration, ethnic cleansing, threats and intimidation -- they are also targets of specific forms of violence and abuse, including sexual violence and exploitation.

Efforts to resolve these conflicts and address their root causes will not succeed unless we empower all those who have suffered from them -- including and especially women. And only if women play a full and equal part can we build the foundations for enduring peace -- development, good governance, human rights and justice.

In conflict areas across the world, women’s movements have worked with the United Nations to rebuild the structures of peace and security, to rehabilitate and reconcile societies, to protect refugees and the internally displaced, to educate and raise awareness of human rights and the rule of law. Within the Organization itself, the integration of gender perspectives in peace and security areas has become a central strategy. An Inter-agency Task Force on Women, Peace and Security has been established to address the role of women in peacemaking, peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and other activities.

This study, like the Inter-agency Task Force, is an initiative undertaken in response to Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security adopted in October 2000 – in which the Council underlined the vital role of women in conflict solution, and mandated a review of the impact of armed conflict on women and girls, the role of women in peacebuilding, and the gender dimensions of peace processes and conflict resolution.

While the study shows that many positive steps have been taken to implement the resolution, women still form a minority of those who participate in peace and security negotiations, and receive less attention than men in post-conflict agreements, disarmament and reconstruction. Our challenge remains the full implementation of the landmark document that resolution 1325 represents. This study points the way to a more systematic way forward.