Arts Center in US Capital Helps Children Pursue Their Dreams

The arts may be a luxury many children of underprivileged families can’t afford, but at the Sitar Arts Center in Washington, D.C., it’s available to all who want to participate. VOA’s Virginia Gunawan reports. Camera – Laurentius Wahyudi.

Afghan American Family in Florida Helps At-risk Afghans, Evacuees

It’s a story as old as America, immigrants who have made their home in the United States, reaching out to help those who come after them. This is the case of an Afghan American mother and daughter in Jacksonville, Florida, who are helping with the resettlement of Afghan refugees. VOA’s Zheela Noori reports.

The entrepreneurship that helps women overcome problems in Chocó - Other Cities - Colombia

Taking young women out of the armed conflict in the Pacific region is not an easy task. This is an area of ​​the country where opportunities for study and personal development for young people are scarce and where talent is exploited by illegal actors.

For this reason, the work of Cruz Helena Valencia Moreno in the city of Quibdó makes her efforts to build peace even more meritorious, because despite so much difficulty has managed to build a path to overcome obstacles not only for her, but for a group of girls and adolescents from her region.

(Enter the special: United Colombia, where differences can live)

For her, the construction of peace must go from speeches to deeds in order for it to become a reality. They are perhaps her great optimism and, as she herself says “her perrenque of her” of her, what has led her to empower herself and seek a better future for “her girls of her” of her.

With her wide smile, she has managed to conquer many community goals of which she is proud and her pupils even more so.

Why robotics?

This young woman, who is about to finish her law degree, approached the recently created Robotics School in her city, Quibdó, three years ago. She there she realized that girls’ participation was minimal and, in the cases in which it did occur, it was not prolonged and did not meet goals.

When she inquired about the reasons, she learned that something more worrying was added to the stigma of women against science and technology: the high rates of violence that took place against young people in the region.

With her project she seeks to end the stigma that girls and women should not do science.

Photo:

Courtesy Cruz Helena Valencia Moreno

“I trust in my territory and in its women, in the power of the Pacific, the potential of the Chocoanas, their brawl that allows them to overcome difficulties. Women with empowerment through science, technology, resorting to conflict resolution and overcoming difficulties in other ways from the development of skills and abilities in women”.

(You may be interested: ‘Unpaid professional practices are a form of exploitation’).

And that’s when he decided to rely on the skills he got from robotics school and make it a tool to help.

“The department of Chocó has many territorial, social, cultural and historical stigmas and it has been very difficult to face that society that places limits and geographical, social and economic barriers. I never imagined that robotics school would provide those tools, but I didn’t think either. go further and reach the point of transforming my territory from science and technology”, recognized Cruz Helena.

Teaching science and technology and getting inspirational to target girls was a great building lesson in the region.

During school: one of the groups of girls who went through their Robotics School program.

Photo:

Courtesy Cruz Helena Valencia Moreno

“The robotics program made it possible to defeat that stigma that women are not good for science and technology. Gender stigmas that limited their intellectual and economic capacities”.

There are already 300 women who have approached innovation and, with science and technology, have created solutions to overcome problems in their communities throughout the Pacific.

There are already 300 women who have approached innovation and, with science and technology, have created solutions to overcome problems in their communities

“In each version of Innovation Girl it has been confirmed that women are the future of Colombia, but they also inspire a new generation of women in the territory and that is my purpose in life. I feel very proud of that. My role has been the empowerment of womenr in science and technology”, highlights Helena.

Inspire

For this reason, she is certain that programs like Innovation Girl will last for a long time and is sure that it will transcend Chocó, which is where it takes place in each edition.

This laboratory of entrepreneurship through science and technology will surely reach the entire country and Latin America.

For now, he will go, in addition to his department, to Cauca and Nariño. The only obstacle is overcoming the stigmas women facepeople of color and the inhabitants of the abandoned territories.

(Further: ‘I hope to see a revolution of Islam led by women.’)

“The gender issue has a very great historical burden. The fight has been hard to have territorial and cultural rights. Therefore, science and technology will make it possible to close these social gaps. With this we bet on obtaining opportunities and building peace”, says Cruz Helena with certainty, for whom spaces like Innovation Girl can lead to landing opportunities for women entrepreneurs who are just looking for an opportunity, for someone to listen to them.

Cruz Helena highlights the name of the country in all its international participations.

Photo:

Courtesy Cruz Helena Valencia Moreno

“For every 10 ventures there are 7 led by women and I have a lot of faith in the push of them for whom nothing has been great. Many people who bet on their power make me think that a more equitable country is closer.”

That is why, with her convincing smile, she insists on that message to the girls and young women of the country. Whenever she can, she gives words of motivation: “There is nothing that is too big for us, nothing that cannot be fulfilled. Dreams are to be fulfilled science and technology will help make life much easier and close the social problems in our territories. There will always be a space for us in science and technology”.

(Keep reading: UN Women: ‘We have to keep raising the flag of parity.’)

Entrepreneurship Laboratory

Innovation Girls 5.0 is an Entrepreneurship Laboratory that seeks to enhance the technology skills and entrepreneurial spirit of the participants in the areas of tourism, technology, transformation and use of natural resources.

In addition, the program seeks to promote the development of solutions to the problems of local environments and the ability to generate their own income for those who participate.

This, within the framework of an alternative for the economic empowerment of women in the Pacific.

exemplary woman

There are many expectations that this young leader has at this time, who seeks to continue working for the communities of Chocó. In the last year she graduated as a lawyer and continues to inspire young people of African descent through talks throughout the country in which she asks them to take advantage of their surroundings to transform their lives, those of their friends and neighbors, as well as achieve new opportunities. .

(You may be interested in: 4 Colombian scientists recognized in 3M’s ’25 women in science’).

She was the Afro-Colombian of the Year in the youth category in 2021, one of the few Colombians to win the Ford Foundation Fellowship Program and, recently, was chosen as the Cafam Chocó Woman, something that has high expectations for her, since she would see it as recognition of the work of young women in her region.

The young leader won the Ford Foundation Fellowship Program in 2021.

Photo:

Courtesy Cruz Helena Valencia Moreno

creation labs

-16-year-old women from the Pacific have enrolled in the program to strengthen their entrepreneurship.

-The laboratory helps them transform their plan into a business, train themselves and take their ideas to the next level.

-So far, more than 300 girls and young people have created science and technology solutions for their territories.

(Also: Great Ideas of Mathematics: communication made numbers).

-Kelly Córdoba and Yorleidy Parra are the girls from the program who participated in the workshop experience at NASA in August.

HELP MARIA MARTINEZ
DNA Bogota
United Colombia

Russia's Olympic Doping Case Helps China Skirt Dicey Topics

Little more than a week ago, the questions from non-Chinese reporters at daily Olympics briefings were about sensitive things involving China — tennis player Peng Shuai, the government’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims in the northwest, the efficiency of the anti-COVID “closed-loop system.”

These days, they’re all about a drug scandal — the one with Russia at the center — and not much else.

The doping saga unfolding around Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva has been a Games-changer at the Beijing Olympics, pushing aside dicey topics that Chinese officials like to avoid answering.

“The big winner in the Valieva scandal is the Chinese government,” Olympic historian David Wallechinsky said in an email. He has been a consistent critic of China’s government and stayed away from these Games, his first Olympic absence since 1988.

“What a relief for them to not have to fend off comments about human rights,” Wallechinsky quipped.

The focus is now on 15-year-old Valieva, which will continue through her long program on Thursday when she is expected to win gold — her second of the Games — but be banned from any medal ceremony after failing a pre-Games doping test.

The IOC has said it “would not be appropriate to hold the medal ceremony” with her case sure to wind up again in the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which ruled on Monday that she could compete. She seems sure to dominate the briefings until the Games end on Sunday, leaving room for little else.

Peng, once the world’s No. 1-ranked tennis doubles player, made sexual assault allegations against a former high-ranking member of China’s ruling Communist Party. The charges three months ago were scrubbed immediately from China’s censored internet, placing the subject out of bounds for Chinese reporters.

Yang Shu’an, the high-profile organizing committee vice president, nearly stumbled in a briefing when — speaking in English — he was asked about Peng and almost mentioned her by name. Of course, saying it would acknowledge that Chinese officials are aware of her case.

China’s internment of at least 1 million Uyghurs has been termed genocide by the United States and others, which China calls the “lie of the century.” This topic is also off limits for Chinese reporters and, by its own choice, the International Olympic Committee.

“The position of the IOC must be, given the political neutrality, that we are not commenting on political issues,” IOC President Thomas Bach said at the briefing Feb. 3, the day before the Games opened. Bach also seldom mentions the Uyghurs by name.

Still, uncomfortable queries about Peng and the Uyghurs kept coming as the Games opened. COVID-19 questions were popular, too, as was criticism about China’s “case-hardened” bubble that separates reporters and athletes from 20 million Beijing residents.

There was a question about Jack Ma, China’s e-commerce billionaire who has largely disappeared from public view. Ma is the founder of the Alibaba Group, which is a major IOC sponsor.

There were persistent questions about athletes’ safety if their comments upset officials of China’s authoritarian government. But those began to fade as few spoke up.

Then came Feb. 9: Day 5 of the Olympics.

“A situation arose today at short notice which requires legal consultation,” IOC spokesman Adams said. “You’ll appreciate because there are legal implications involved that I can’t talk very much about it at this stage.”

Non-Chinese reporters quizzed Adams about the details for days. Questions from Chinese state-controlled media continued to center on soliciting laudatory comments about the venues, offering praise of the efficient organization — and laments about the scarce supply of Bing Dwen Dwen panda mascots.

Much news is local, so Chinese reporters are not alone in this. But not one offered a question about Valieva as non-Chinese continued to press Adams about the unfolding mystery.

“I can’t give you any more details,” Adams said. He repeated this for several days in varied forms. “I’m afraid, as you know, legal issues can sometimes drag on.”

After days of dominating the briefings, news came Monday that Valieva had been cleared to compete despite failing a pre-Games drug test. She skates this week and is the favorite to win the gold on Thursday, where she may lead a 1-2-3 sweep by Russian women.

And everybody’s watching. They’ll be doing so not just for her skating prowess, but for the next chapter in the saga of a girl buffeted by powerful forces and a nation known for doing what it takes to get the outcome it wants.

A nation that, for the moment, isn’t China.

“This is likely a welcome distraction from other potential subversions or critiques of the Games and of China at large,” Maria Repnikova, a China expert at Georgia State University, said in a email to Associated Press.

“Since the Olympics tend to present apt opportunities for the international community to investigate and widely report on the host country, having a scandal that takes the attention away from China in this case plays in favor of Chinese authorities.”

How to tell a child that he has cancer? Teo's story helps

When childhood cancer runs in the family, it’s not just a challenge to address the disease. Parents also face the moment of explaining to the child that he has a disease and all the stages that he is going to go through. The story “Teo discovers cancer” can help on the International Day of Children with Cancer.

Image of the story “Teo discovers Cancer”. Photo courtesy Bayer

This children’s story is part of an initiative developed by the Bayer company in collaboration with family associations and experts from reference centers and covers the different stages that a child cancer patient experiences, from the moment of diagnosis.

Every year there are 15 new cases of cancer per 100,000 inhabitants in children under 14 years of age, with a five-year survival rate of 81%.

“Teo discovers cancer” is a children’s story illustrated by Violeta Denou that goes through the different stages that a child patient experiences from the moment of diagnosis and uses easy language accessible to children.

The stories of TEO emerged in 1977 and have accompanied generations in their educational process and whose edition is carried out by Planeta.

Cover of the story “Teo discovers cancer”. Courtesy photo

Participating in this initiative are the family associations AFANOC (Association of Relatives and Friends of Oncological Children of Catalonia) and PYFANO (Association of Parents, Relatives and Friends of Oncological Children of Castilla y León).

Experts from reference centers such as the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, Sant Joan de Déu in Barcelona (KIDS Barcelona group), and the Spanish Society of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology (SEHOP) have also collaborated.

For Irene Costa of the AFANOC association, this book “is an example of the work we carry out in the association, to talk about the reality of cancer in a natural way, without taboos, without forbidden words, and allowing emotions and sensations to surface, which is It’s important that they come to light.”

Oncologist Raquel Hladun, from the Vall d’Hebron Hospital of Barcelona, ​​points out: “Childhood cancer is still a rare disease, but thanks to research, survival rates have been achieved that are really favorable”.

According to the doctor, “having materials that deal with the subject with such affection and tenderness, with which we can explain to affected children what their daily life is going to be like from now on, is something necessary.”