by Katharine Daniels, Executive Editor

This author profile is the first in a series of conversations between our executive editor and The WIP Contributors. Many women, like Binalakshmi, are successful agents of change in their communities and are leading powerful movements for peace. By highlighting their work we hope to strengthen The WIP’s role promoting the extraordinary efforts of our contributors.

Peace and Happy New Year from everyone at The WIP. –Ed.

In Manipur, a state in northeast India bordering the country of Burma on the east and south, a political conflict with India has persisted since the once independent kingdom was forced to join India after the British left in 1947. While the conflict is political in origin, the influx of weapons over the last five decades has prompted soaring rates of violence among ethnic groups in the region. Manipur has the highest number of gun-related deaths in India – violence that creates 300 widows per year. Yet the world rarely hears about Manipur or the “slow genocide” Binalakshmi Nepram has witnessed.

by Merle Exit
-USA-

2010 was season 11 for Andra Douglas, owner of the New York Sharks, the longest operating and most successful all-female football team in the U.S. Douglas’ pioneering spirit and far-reaching vision ensured that it was a historic year for women’s sports worldwide.

by Alia Turki Al-Rabeo
-Syria-

Every morning I start my day with the sight of our block’s cutest child Nour rushing to catch a bus to school. This nine-year-old wakes up at dawn as his school is an hour’s drive from home.

Nour speaks Arabic better than I do and in a Syrian accent. He loves Syrian food and sings Syrian national songs. Yet he cannot enroll in any government school. Sawsan, his mother, must renew his residency every year because according to the Syrian Nationality Law she cannot pass on her nationality to her husband or child. Nour inherited this discrimination because Sawsan chose an Iranian to be her husband and his father.

by Jessica Mosby
-USA-

Tiny Furniture is poised to be 2010’s indie darling. The film is a charming coming of age story for a generation unsure of how to apply their education and execute their aspirations beyond the ubiquity of social networking.

The film opens with Aura, played by writer and director Lena Dunham, returning home to her family’s enviable Tribeca loft after graduating from college in Ohio. Aura aspires to make films, but her current professional resume is comprised of YouTube videos, the most famous of which captures her wearing a bikini and bathing in a campus fountain.

At home, Aura’s post-college malaise is exacerbated by her overachieving younger sister Nadine and accomplished photographer mother Siri. The film’s title refers to miniatures her mother photographs. Nadine and Siri are played by Dunham’s real life sister, Grace Dunham, and mother, fine art photographer Laurie Simmons. Neither had ever acted onscreen before, yet their deadpan performances are far from amateurish.

Unsure of how to proceed in life, Aura gets a job as a day hostess at a neighborhood bistro. While answering the reservation line in an empty restaurant, Aura falls for the attractive yet callous sous chef Keith (David Call). A bit desperate for male attention, Aura invites Jed (Alex Karpovsky), a visiting creative type whose work she admires on YouTube, to stay at the loft while her mother and sister are away visiting colleges. These misguided romantic endeavors are encouraged by Aura’s best friend Charlotte (Jemima Kirke), a bad influence who likes a good time.

by Moira Birss
-USA-

“Ciudad Juárez won’t be a big deal. You spent two years in Colombia!” my friend reassures me.

“Yeah,” I reply with nervous knots in my stomach, “but isn’t Juárez one of the most dangerous cities in the world?”

The violence wracking Mexico, largely fueled by the country’s drug war, is magnified in the border town of Ciudad Juárez, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. So even though I spent two years as a human rights accompanier in Colombia visiting some of the country’s most dangerous regions, the concentration and apparent randomness of the violence in Juárez left me apprehensive about my upcoming trip.

Just days before my departure the last weekend in October, four maquila factory workers were killed and fifteen more injured when gunmen shot up three company buses carrying the workers home. The following weekend, 20 more were killed. Since 2008, the murder rate has surpassed 6,500 in a city of about 1.5 million.

But despite my nervousness, I was determined to go. I planned to attend the Foro Internaciónal Contra La Militarización y la Violencia – the International Forum Against Militarization and Violence – on behalf of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an organization I had worked for in Colombia. As U.S. government officials suggest the application of a U.S.-Colombia-style policy in Mexico, those of us who have worked in Colombia and strongly criticize the human rights implications of that policy are seeking to get involved in the Mexico discussion.

by Sandra Miniutti
- USA -

During the holiday season many of us are deciding which charity to support with our gifts. To help determine which charity is best for you, The WIP Editors are republishing the following article about an independent charity evaluator and how to make the most out of your donations. Please consider a donation to The WIP to support women's voices and global perspectives on relevant issues from around the world. - Ed.

After a short career as a scientist, after many years volunteering and contributing to various causes and after earning a MBA, I decided to leave corporate America for the non-profit sector. My first position was working at a local art, science and history museum. Quickly, I was initiated into the world of non-profit marketing and fundraising. Not many surprises there. We struggled to make payroll while producing quality exhibits and educational programming. The work was exhausting, but fulfilling.

by Jessica Mosby
-USA-

Made in Dagenham is a feminist manifesto arriving in theaters just in time for the holidays. The historical fiction film dramatically captures the struggles of female machinists working at an out-dated Ford factory in 1960s England who demand pay comparable to their male counterparts. The women go on strike until their demands are met, thus starting an international revolution for equal pay.

Sally Hawkins plays Rita O’Grady, a working class mother who puts in long hours sewing upholstery for new Ford cars. During a visit by union organizer Albert (Bob Hoskins), Rita is recruited to attend an upcoming meeting at Ford’s corporate offices. Shady union head Monty (Kenneth Cranham) tells Rita and her coworker Connie (Geraldine James) to keep quiet and act agreeable to whatever he says. Once at Ford’s offices, Rita becomes enraged when the machinists’ work is described as “unskilled” by Ford’s arrogant executives.