Africa Health Day (3)
---------------------
In response to Dr. Ssemakula's query, I am pleased to confirm that in-
deed there are efforts being made to establish specific days in the
year that focus on issues of health from an African perspective and, in
the case of AMANITARE, a gender perspective.
AMANITARE is the African Partnership for Sexual and Reproductive Health
and Rights (SRHR) of Women and Girls. The Partnership was launched in
1999 and is a ten-year initiative of RAINBO (Research, Action and In-
formation Network for the Bodily Integrity of Women).
AMANITARE is the name of one of the African queens of ancient Nubia. It
was chosen for this initiative to highlight the important but neglected
role of these queens in the history of the world's civilisation, and to
take inspiration from their strength and wisdom in our efforts to build
a better future for African women and girls.
The Partnership's mandate is derived from the outcomes of the World
Conference on Human Rights (Vienna, 1993), The International Conference
on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994) and The Fifth World Confer-
ence on Women (Beijing, 1995). Its main aim is to facilitate the trans-
lation of the principles embodied in these agreements into the daily
realities of African women's and girls' lives. To date, AMANITARE has
40 members in 14 different African countries.
In an effort to celebrate African women and girls, AMANITARE is working
to institute an African Women's Health Day, in line with International
Women's Day. Since the 4th of February was the day on which AMANITARE
was launched, it has been set aside as the celebration day. We envisage
that in the near future each country will decide what kind of activi-
ties would be most appropriate for them to celebrate on this day. In
2001, AMANITARE Partners generated some local interest in the initia-
tive both on African Women's Health Day and on International Women's
Day. In 2002, we officially celebrated this day in Abuja, Nigeria as an
opening to our skills development workshop on the SRHR of young women
and girls. We generated substantial media publicity around this cele-
bration, and several local NGOs, policy makers and donors based in Ni-
geria attended the ceremony. We are planning some very exciting activi-
ties for 2003, details of which will be posted on our website in the
coming months.
For further information about AMANITARE and our other activities please
visit our website at:
http://www.amanitare.org
Anna Nsubuga
Africa Program Officer / AMANITARE Project Co-ordinator
RAINBO
Queens Studios
121 Salusbury Road
London NW6 6RG, UK
mailto:info@amanitare.org
http://www.rainbo.org
http://www.amanitare.org
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