International Women’s Day 2012, A Poem about Women

EMPOWER RURAL WOMEN –

END HUNGER AND POVERTY.

“Invest in rural women. Eliminate discrimination against them in law and in practice. Ensure that policies respond to their needs. Give them equal access to resources. Provide rural women with a role in decision-making.”

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is: Empower Rural Women And End Hunger and Poverty

To get to the root of the meaning of this day
It is enough to consider the words in this year’s theme
Empower: What more important, than to give power that belongs to oneself back or to just give POWER

Rural: It is women in rural areas that are most in need of power, for they are the ones that will do the most with their power
With empowerment comes belief, and with belief comes possibility for change
with change comes chance

End: There is nothing more beautiful than the end, when one considers a sad thought or event. Therefore the end of such a thing as Hunger or Poverty is indeed a beautiful thought.

Hunger: With all the possibilities and wealth in this world, there really is no excuse for poverty. Maybe in empowering rural women hunger will be gone from our dictionaries and from our world.(This idea I once heard from a young friend whose sole desire in life is to get rid of the word hunger from the dictionary, at the time I found it a fascinating idea, and now I find it an even more fantastic idea).

Poverty: There are times that poverty starts as a state of mind and then it becomes a state of being
Women can change the world as they hold in their wombs the next generation to come
The generation that believes in themselves, and believes in the non existence of Hunger and Poverty

A story:

Once upon a time there was a seed in gestation in the depth of the universe.
This seed was uncertain if it was ready to come and traverse the land.
There had been talks of drought and also of poverty and hunger.
The seed could hear all these stories through the layers of the earth.
Then one day, there was an initiative among the women of the land.
Women thought they would reconcile being who they are;
and also holding every other beings’ hand.
Men rejoiced knowing that women would not only hold power;
but they would give power to the land.
With the murmur of happiness the earth trembled;
and the seedling found its way to the womb
of the woman waiting for years to become pregnant.
With love, education, tolerance and understanding people were able
to rid the dictionary from one word and that word was hunger.
By the time the seedling found its way into the womb,
and soon after through the canal of birth,
there was no worry of anyone being hungry,
because women had empowered all those beings around them
to feed the land and all the inhabitants.
Everyone lived happily ever after.
From time to time, someone would take an extra ear of corn home,
to save in fear of the days past.
But soon the sun shined and the flower seeds each became a sea of corn,
and people ate and rejoiced.

Happy International Women’s day to the seedling in the core of the earth and to me and to my mother and to my daughters holding eggs ready to bear joyous humans empowered
by light and life.