Men Against Violence, Women for Peace

On Friday I went to a day-long round table discussion put on by the OSCE with the above title. There was a session on the role of men in combating violence against women that included an interesting presentation by an American guy who works MenEngage Europe in former Yugoslavia. An anthropologist from Latvia also gave a presentation about redefining gender roles and NGO director talked about rehabilitating perpetrators. Another session focused on the development of legislation to prosecute aggressors and protect victims, and the last session was about gender issues in the Moldovan military and border guard service. There were representatives present from the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and Family, and Ministry of Foreign affairs, as well as lawyers, people from the OSCE, Moldovan NGOs, and foreign experts. I’m glad I got to attend and learn more about the work being done to address the issue of gender-based violence from a variety of different areas.

On Saturday night I went to dinner at a nice restaurant with an Italian lady I had met who works for an NGO that was cooperating with La Strada to conduct research on child trafficking in Moldova because she had wanted to meet again to give me the hard copy of their report. Also at dinner was a Norwegian lady I had met who works for a rule of law project in Chisinau but is leaving soon, and I met a lady who works at the Swedish embassy who was there with her husband. She just finished writing the human rights report for the embassy so she knew a bit about trafficking in Moldova. We ended up talking about gender equality at dinner as well and it was interesting to hear more about gender issues in Scandinavia. The Norwegian lady said it’s something like 40% of executives in Norway are women now and it’s a scandal when a woman decides she wants to stay at home and raise a family. Other topics of conversation included how ridiculous the Finnish language is and how a strangely large proportion of people at the table are twins or are dating someone who is a twin.

In other news, Happy Birthday to my mom and dad whose birthdays were yesterday and today respectively. I’m working on a report for the OSCE now on Winrock’s 16 Days Campaign activities and then I’m off to Timisoara, Romania on Thursday to visit a friend for a few days. Hard to believe that in a week I’ll be in Maine for Christmas!

16 Days Campaign & Town Hall Meeting

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy because Winrock is participating in the international 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign. Click here for a link to the official campaign. The very basic idea behind the campaign is to raise awareness about violence against women, and Winrock has been participating in the campaign in Moldova for several years now. I went to a Training of Trainers organized by Winrock on domestic violence on Friday that included women from Transnistria and this side of Moldova who were students, volunteers, and employees of NGOs. We also launched a Facebook campaign to advertise events and show a photo exhibition that reflects real-life stories of violence. Click here for the link to the Facebook photo album, but unfortunately the stories underneath the photos are only in Romanian. Yesterday we set up the photo exhibition with large prints of the photos in the Sociology department of Moldova State University and about 50 students came to check out the exhibit and fill out surveys about their knowledge of gender-based violence and impressions of the event. On Saturday we had a "Frisbee Against Violence" event at an indoor gym that promoted the campaign and also promoted Frisbee as a non-violent sport. The official Moldovan frisbee team, the Flying Mamaligas, came and about 7 Peace Corps volunteers/Americans were there as well. Proud to say that the Americans won the Moldova vs. USA game at the end.

On Friday I'm going to the roundtable put on by the OSCE that will include presentations by government officials and employees of international organizations and NGOs that is meant to wrap up the campaign and talk about how to work to include men in the fight against violence so that should be very interesting.

Last night I went to the Ambassador's house for the annual Town Hall Meeting for Americans living in Moldova. The house is gorgeous and the food was incredible. Not surprising. At one point he had everyone go around and introduce themselves which was great because I found out that a bunch of the people there are working with trafficking victims and I made some contacts. They were all from religious organizations. It would be interesting to compare their projects other NGOs and international orgs so I'm going to try to find out more about the work they're doing.

Other Moldova Blogs

I’ve been meaning to put up links to the blogs of the other Fulbrighters in Moldova because I think it would be interesting for people who are reading my blog to check out their entries as well in order to gain different perspectives on the country, learn about what’s going on in other regions of Moldova, and to pick up on things that I haven’t thought to write about. For example, definitely watch Liz’s video about shoes. As Melissa knows, I have recently become very Moldovan in my obsession about keeping my boots clean. It is very common to see people stop to wash their shoes in a puddle if they get the least bit dirty. We all found this very amusing at first but I have to admit that I did that when I was with Melissa on my way to a soccer game. In addition, I know my mom gets confused because I mention people’s names in my blog without any explanation as to who they are so this might help clear that up. So, here are some links:

Liz’s video blog. She is based in Comrat, which is the capital of the autonomous Gagauzian republic in the south of Moldova. http://moldovamoldovamoldova.wordpress.com/

Melissa’s blog. She’s in Orhei, which is just 45 minutes north of Chisinau. http://mmcdonald5188.wordpress.com/

Matt’s blog. He spends half his time in Chisinau and half in/near Transnistria. http://mjrellaford-adventures.blogspot.com/

Rebecca's blog. She's way south, in Cahul. http://musingsfrommoldova.wordpress.com/

Enjoy!

Election Weekend

Today I got to serve as one of the official election monitors in Chisinau. I visited 6 polling stations with a couple of embassy employees and one of the Fulbright scholars. It was a beautiful day and the turnout was surprisingly large. One of the nicest things we saw was when the president of one of the polling stations announced that it was this young man's first time voting and everyone in the room clapped for him. Several of the people we talked to said that they had seen more people come out to vote today than ever before, and we were visiting the stations early in the day; from about 10 to 2. One of the presidents complained that they were so busy in the morning that they didn't even have time for tea. It was a good kind of busy though because the election is super important and we've all be worried that there wouldn't be a good turnout. Most of the Moldovans I had talked to up to this point had said that they didn't know who they would vote for because they can't see any of the 19 parties (yes, that many) on the ballot having any real promise for helping this poor country move forward. It'll be really interesting to see what happens and what kind of coalition is formed, since it is pretty much impossible that any party will win a majority of the vote.

Yesterday was a fun day as well. I got together with some Americans, Moldovans, and one British girl to enjoy an amazing Thanksgiving dinner. One of the Americans made amazing pecan and apple pies, green bean casserole, carrot soufle, biscuits, and some other stuff. We brought over 2 of the biggest turkey legs I have ever seen, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and some desserts. It was pretty incredible. I didn't do anything on the actual Thanksgiving day so it was nice to get together and have the real deal and not just skip an important American tradition.

Backing up even more, Friday was my host sister Mihaela's birthday so my family also made a ton of incredible food for that and just a few minutes ago we finished the delicious cake they bought. A few relatives/family friends came over, and one guy brought a violin so I got to play for everyone. My boss's 3-year-old daughter was there and she had a really good time dancing around while I played. She kept ordering me to play more and explaining what she wanted in Romanian so I did the best I could with what I could comprehend. I understood her a lot better this time than last time though. When she first got here she kept asking me what my name was and where my dad is. I'd answer her, then she would ask the same thing again about 10 minutes later. I guess she really wanted to know.

Bringing a little Wellesley to Chisinau

This week is International Education Week and all the Fulbright scholars were invited to give presentations at the Educational Advising Center where I hold a weekly conversation group. I decided to give a presentation titled “Preparing Women for Global Leadership: The Albright Institute Case” that would focus on the strategies that Wellesley College has used to empower women and would describe the activities and goals of the new Albright Institute. In addition, I hoped to have an engaging discussion about the challenges of being a woman in Moldova and how to support women so that they can improve their lives and also become leaders in society. Seven extremely bright and ambitious young women came to the presentation and they really got the wheels turning in my mind so the afternoon ended up being much more interesting than I expected.

A couple of the women had a pretty heated debate about the benefits and disadvantages of a single-sex education and that started off the discussion. Then they brought up the point that women are in a tough place in Moldova because they are expected to have careers, raise children, cook, clean, and do everything else all at the same time, whereas it is expected for me to just go to work then come home and relax. Of course this is not a problem unique to Moldova, but the women said that it’s difficult to cope with it here because young women and girls do not have any role models to look up to. They feel all this pressure and know that they have to do all these things but have no idea how to accomplish everything and stay sane and healthy because they can’t look to an example of how any other woman has done this. One of the women was very open and shared her story of domestic violence in her family, saying that women need to speak up about this more in order to stop it from happening. On a side note, she actually works for the OSCE and is going to be a great contact for me in the future. She showed a strong interest in volunteering for Winrock as well.

It was really interesting for me to see this group interact and engage with gender issues. It felt very Wellesley to have a small group of women from different backgrounds (who have never met) come together to debate each other with contagious enthusiasm that made them all feel like they wanted to go out and do something to change society. I think it would be amazing to create a network of young women like this who are working or volunteering for NGOs or just have a strong interest in women’s issues to get together once a month or something like that to exchange ideas, participate in debates, and collaborate on new projects or find out about various opportunities to volunteer and make a difference. I wonder if there is anything like that in place in Chisinau. I think I have mentioned before that there are something like 300 NGOs in Moldova that have some sort of focus on gender issues/anti-trafficking efforts and a lot of times their programs overlap and could be more effective if there were more collaboration on projects. Logistically, this just seems very difficult. At my presentation, however, the girl who works for the OSCE was able to invite the others to the play on domestic violence that I went to (there is one more performance) and I was able to interest them in the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence campaign that Winrock is participating in that most of them had never heard of.

The more people you meet, the more opportunities you find out about and it’s much easier to join an activity or volunteer when you have already know a person who is working for that organization and has personally invited you to participate. In addition, if young women like this continued to meet and expand their networks, I have no doubt that they would inspire each other to do important work in Moldova. As one of the participants today mentioned, there are many brilliant women in Moldova but if they don’t speak up and share their knowledge and experiences you would never know it. There are so many intelligent and talented people in Moldova that it is a real tragedy that there are so few opportunities to make a living in any field here. If these people join forces and try to have a positive outlook rather than a hopeless one, then maybe, someday, something will change and the country will be able to move forward.

Chisinau High

I have been on such a Chisinau high this past week. This is partly due to the fact that it has been sunny and in the mid-60s which seems totally unreal for November. I’ve also been really busy meeting new people, going to some great concerts, and finding out about a bunch of new opportunities for my research project. I’ll write about the research opportunities more as they come into fruition.

So people who have been visiting Chisinau over the past few days include: Liz and her parents who will be in Moldova for a couple of weeks, 2 Fulbright English Teaching Assistants who are based in Georgia, and 1 other Fulbright ETA and his girlfriend who are based in Azerbaijan. I went out to dinner with Liz and her parents on Thursday to a popular restaurant for tourists that has live music and serves traditional Moldovan cuisine and we happened to run into the rest of the group with another Fulbright researcher, Rod, who is studying music in Chisianu. He invited me to come visit the music school where he is studying and said he could definitely hook me up with a violin and probably find people for me to play with if I want.

On Friday night we met up again at Opa, a Greek restaurant, and it was filled with ex-pats. I saw Chi Pham, the director of LED who was at the Winrock Young Entrereneur’s Forum, and some ladies I saw at the OSCE Anti-Trafficking Coordination Meeting on Wednesday as well as some men who were clearly from the UK. We also spotted a couple of Americans across the room who turned out to be Peace Corps volunteers so they joined us to go to Bier Platz for a beer after dinner.

After Bier Platz we tried to go to a club near the National Opera Theater because someone had invited one of the Fulbright ETAs to meet her there. He asked some students on the street how to get there and it turned out they were going to the same place so we befriended them and talked for a while. One of the guys did Work and Travel in Alaska so he was excited to see Americans again. They also were only speaking Russian so that was convenient for us since none of us speak Romanian all that well. We made it to the club, but we couldn’t get in. There was “face control” which is something all of us who have been to Russia are very familiar with. It means that only men who have a lot of money and women who are dressed up like prostitutes can get in. Apparently, however, the issue here was more that you had to reply that you were attending this event on Facebook and then you would be on a list and could get in. Our new Moldovan friends tried to help us out but it was no use. They said they’d actually never seen face control happening anywhere in Chisinau so they were really bummed out and apologetic about it.

On Saturday afternoon I met up with a couple that a Wellesley alumna had suggested I meet for coffee because she said they are amazing people and would be great contacts for me here in Chisinau. She was definitely right about that. We had a really nice conversation and I will be seeing much more of them. We went to a fairly posh café and the Swedish ambassador happened to be there so I met her and another American lady that she was with as well.

After I met up with them, I went to a concert that was happening on the square outside the National Opera Theater. Zdob si Zdub, the most famous Moldovan rock band, was playing and the whole event was a political rally for one of the candidates in the election. They played a cover of a Russian rock song by Kino that I love so that made my night.

However, the night got even better. We went to this underground bar that I’ve been to a couple times to see the band Still Waters play. One of the guys in the band is the Peace Corps security officer or something like that. They played covers of songs like “Last Dance with Mary Jane” “Great Balls of Fire” and lots of blues music. Liz’s dad got to go up onstage for the second set and play the harmonica so that was really exciting too. The band was awesome and they played for 3 hours so it was a great night. It’s a small venue but most people got up and danced and it was really cool. Liz's dad on the harmonica:



Now I am sitting in the park. It is sunny and warm and there is live music. I'm going to see Swan Lake tonight with the people visiting from Azerbaijan and two Fulbright researchers. Pretty nice weekend.

Anti-Trafficking Coordination Meeting

So the executive decision was made for me to not go to Transnistria today. I would have been going with Winrock’s Chief of Party and she was worried about the inevitable showdown we would have with the border guards as a result of a foreigner being in the car and this would cause a great deal of stress and make us late for the round table. Better to go when there isn’t a time constraint. Our driver said that he went with a German guy a little while ago and while there was no problem entering Transnistria, the guards wouldn’t let them cross the border on the way out so they had to hassle with them for a long time and eventually pay a significant bribe. My understanding is basically that you never know what’s going to happen at the border. It could largely depend on which town you are trying to go through or whether or not the guard you have to talk to ran out of cigarettes or had too much vodka the night before and is feeling agitated. That’s how I imagine the situation anyway.

At any rate, I was able to attend the monthly OSCE Anti-Trafficking Coordination Meeting with my boss and I had been looking forward to going to one of these sessions since I got here so I was fine with that. I would say there were about 25 representatives there from various NGOs and government offices, and I also saw a Peace Corps volunteer that I met this weekend and a Political Officer from the US Embassy that I’ve talked to a few times. The meeting was partly in English and mostly in Romanian but everyone got a pretty sweet headset for immediate translation. It wasn’t as cool as the ones we got at the big meetings in Brussels that you can use to listen to speeches in all the different languages of the EU, but it was something.

As for the content of the meeting, my boss gave a presentation on the Transnistrian Women’s Support Project and the rest of the discussion focused more on children’s issues that have recently become the subject of much attention. It seems like a bunch of organizations are going to start doing research on the issue of the exploitation of children through the internet and are creating awareness projects to address this problem through prevention. Many children in Moldova are left without parents because they need to go abroad to make money, and they use the internet to keep in touch. As a result, they have constant access to a computer and the internet and have no one around to advise them about how to use the internet safely. As we all know, the internet can be a pretty scary place. In the same way that some sexual predator/pedophile might try to communicate with a girl in rural Maine through Myspace, you might have a trafficker in Egypt contacting Moldovan youth through Odnaklassniki or Facebook. Just the other day at work my co-worker got a Facebook message from a guy in Egypt she doesn’t know and she said that happens pretty often that men from the Middle East are contacting Moldovan women and trying to meet them and usually it’s a fairly creepy situation. Apparently the same kind of thing is happening with sketchy people offering kids money or presents or even threatening to hurt their parents as a way of trying to manipulate them psychologically through online communication. The director of La Strada, an NGO in Moldova, talked about a new hotline they have opened for children regarding this issue and they can also contact one of La Strada’s consultants through a Skype account.

I found the meeting very useful for my research overall, especially since it is nearly impossible to find information easily online or even in print through brochures or reports published by organizations in Moldova. Much more information is presented at the meetings than can be surmised through the official notes that you can get from the OSCE. I would definitely like to attend every month if I can. It’s a good way to see what various organizations and actors are doing to address the issue and what kind of new projects or problems are popping up.