Nicholas Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn have a new book coming out in September. It is why he was on sabbatical for the first half of Conflicts 267. It's called "Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide."
"“We wrote a book devoted to women in the developing world because if you want to fight poverty and extremism, you need to educate and empower women and bring them into the economy. A country can’t grow and be stable if half the population is marginalized. Mercy Corps is helping spread this message through their One Table campaign. And you can help advance the cause by registering your book club on this site. You'll receive a moderator's kit to help guide the discussion and guidelines on how to host a fundraising event to support Mercy Corps' work with women and families. Please join the conversation, because we all have a role to play.
“Thank you.”
—Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
They are speaking at the World Affairs Council in Philadelphia in October. But, check out what Mercy Corps is doing to spread the word. The site is:
http://onetable.mercycorps.org/halfthesky
Christina, in a round about way, this discusses your comment about people feeling helpless to change things in the world. Does anyone have any ideas about how we could form a book club and do this?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Well, no reason a book club can't be virtual--why not see if we can get enough of us who read this blog to agree to read the book over a certain period of time and discuss it here? I don't know what we'd do about the fundraiser part, but maybe we could rope in Mr. Hung's Conflicters? They could join us here for the discussion, and organize the fundraiser at Central.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of an online book club, and I'm really glad that there are people in our world who think of ideas to help women get education, health options, micro-loans for micro-businesses. But somehow the education of men has to help wipe out the idea of power as oppression of others through intimidation and violence, and that will take a lot of doing because it has gone on so long in so many cultures including our own. It's especially scary that religious cultures promote oppression.
ReplyDeleteI think this exactly addresses my problem posed earlier- by my argument I think people would be less inclined to read a depressing book about real problems with seemingly no solution.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that is this book is telling us exactly how to find a solution. At the same time it's giving each of us the opportunity to make a difference.
I'd love to be a part of the book club. And I think the fundraiser at Central with the conflicts class is a great idea.
OK, that's three of us: Emily, Christina and me. Anyone else interested? I sent for the materials to see what we could do. I contacted Mr. Hung about this year's Conflicts class doing something. I think he will be very open to it. So who else is going to join us?
ReplyDeleteA book club seems like a great idea! Even if the books are depressing, they're eye opening. Ishmael Beah's book is still one of my favorites.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we could use a Gmail discussion group. I know Mr. Hung endorsed online postings so maybe we could incorporate it that way.
Ilana, I spoke to Mr. Hung today about it. He is definitely going to use it in class as a major topic. Imagine all the topics and areas of the world you can talk about with this book. Any suggestions on how we would joing his class's discussion? As you said, he is going to do a lot of things on line with his class.
ReplyDelete