"Stand up! Asian Women"
(1)
[Speak Out]
Talking about Bangkok… I don't know which things will suddenly
associate with your mind. To both of us, Bangkok, symbolizes our
three-week specific participating experiences of Asian Woman Project,
which held by SIGNIS, Asia.
This project is tailor-made for all women in Asia. Apart from
enhancing network between women around the countries, its objective
is to arise our concerns over women issues and problems in Asia.
Through different workshops, we all led to think thoroughly. Being
a Catholic, a female, or a communicator, we assume our full responsibilities
and transmit the message.
As an Asian woman, we learnt a lot from there. These three weeks,
we met many friends from different countries. We exchanged ideas
and cultures, made us realize the importance of "speaking out"
and unearth our potentials beneath.
Every face and every smile we saw are the one I see like yesterday.
So, what did we actually do within these three weeks?
The first day in Bangkok
The plane was landing…our three-week journey was going to begin.
Frankly, it was quite uneasy to work and live with strangers. Both
of us got a little bit nervous. After the arrival, we saw a nun
standing inside the crowd. She was Sister Cora, the first staff
we saw after landing. Her face and sincerity are still remembering….
We waited for other participants at the airport. Each of them
we met was friendly and kind but we felt like strangers.
After a long traveling, we arrived at our "new home".
To encourage all of us to communicate with other participants abroad,
we were arranged to live into separated room. Our feelings were
just as if we lost our trusting companion! We have to "fight"
for ourselves. No one knows, this experience finally led us become
more independent then used to be.
Our first lesson
We still remember the first time when we entered our lecture room…this
was the first time we get in touch with the rest of participants.
Just like what we said, we still felt like strangers. Especially
when we were talking in English, the strange feelings were even
more obvious.
Our first lesson is Asian Reality and Challenges in Media and
Communication. Our lecturer was Ms. Mini Josep from India.
At the beginning of the lesson, Ms. Mini Josep showed us ten
female-related commercials produced in India. She reminded us to
think about the significance of those commercials. We discovered
that all women characters portrayed as negative figure. It directly
reflected the real situation in Asia-the status of women in Asia
is still restricted and ignored.
Being a woman in twentieth century, we can't just sit until the
above situation become worse. Don't keep silence anymore! Quoting
from Ms. Mini Josep, "Speak out before it is too late!"
we have to start fighting for our own rights and standing up together.
We should tell everybody-women today are no longer timid and weak!
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