Category Gender

A woman with drive – from typewriters to trucking

0 Comments read Business and Trade, Gender
Heather Jones

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 27.07.2010 (The Sydney Morning Herald): When Heather Jones decided to launch a solely female owned and operated multi-truck company in the resource-rich rugged landscape of Western Australia, few thought she would survive in what is predominantly a male business.

But six years on, her aptly named Success Transport company has become a profitable enterprise.

Jones was working as a secretary for a mining company, when a call went out for Haulpak drivers. Having grown around motorbikes and cars, she promptly exchanged her typewriter with a seat behind the wheel and progressed to driving long-haul trucks.

Continue reading →

Girls Give Red Card to FIFA’s Hijab Ban

0 Comments read Cricket & Sports, Gender
Lakemba Sport and Recreation Club women's football team. Photo Credit: Supplied

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 06.06.2010 (WFS): As the winter sun descends, young girls warm up for football training in their shorts and shirts at the Lakemba Sport and Recreation Club (LSRC) in Sydney, Australia. Some are also wearing a ‘hijab’, or headscarf, the traditional Islamic accessory used to cover the head.

Although a common sight in multicultural Australia, the ‘hijab’ has come under the spotlight as soccer’s world governing body, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), had banned it from competition in April this year.  FIFA’s rules state that players may not wear jewellery or dangerous headgear such as hair clips, and that “basic compulsory equipment must not have any political, religious or personal statements”.

Continue reading →

Healing touch for Congo’s women

0 Comments read Gender, Health & Science
Lyn Lusi, who passed away in 2012, was the co-founder and program director of HEAL Africa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, working to transform individuals and communities impacted by the atrocities and gender violence of war. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 27.01.2010 (Women’s Feature Service): Kamina Feza is one of the many women brutally raped and abandoned with serious injuries each day in the conflict ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where gender-based violence is systematically being used as a weapon of war by the military and militia.

Some 1,100 rapes are reported each month, with an average of 36 women and girls raped every day, noted United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, during her recent visit to Goma, a provincial capital in eastern DRC, where Lyn Lusi, a social activist, along with her husband, a Congolese orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Jo Lusi, have established HEAL Africa, a health service to treat and care for these women.

Continue reading →