Hawa Aden Mohamed: a woman of courage

Hawa Aden Mohamed has dedicated her life to advancing the health and education of Somali women and girls, to providing both emergency and long-term assistance to internally-displaced Somali families, and to abolishing the practice of female genital mutilation. Ms. Mohamed began her work over three decades ago by founding the Refugee Women’s Relief and Development Center. 

Hawa Aden Mohamed, who has come to be known in Galkayo as "Mama" Hawa, has created spaces where displaced women and girls, victims of all sorts of abuse and violence, can find safety, opportunity and be protected and sheltered. Her work stems from a belief that education lies at the root of everything, especially for girls.

Mama Hawa is also a vocal campaigner for women's rights, particularly opposing female genital mutilation (FGM). Her sister died from an infection after she was circumcised at about the age of seven. In addition to advocacy, Mama Hawa's centre provides counselling for circumcised women and girls and survivors of gender-based violence. Every year, some 180 women benefit from these programmes and many lives are saved.

In 2008, Mama Hawa received the Roger N. Baldwin Medal of Liberty Award presented by Human Rights First in honor of her work to improve the quality of life for Somali women and girls affected by Violence. 

Currently, Mama Hawa serves as the Executive Director of the Galkayo Education Center for Peace and Development (GECPD), a community-based organization in the Puntland area of Somalia. Since it’s founding in 2000, GECPD operates primary and vocational education programs for impoverished, displaced, and minority women and girls and works within communities to promote women’s rights, including combating the grave problems of gender-based violence and female genital mutilation. 

Suor Marie Keyrouz: Un fenomeno vocale liturgico che si possa ascoltare nel mondo.

"Per ascoltare un concerto di suor Marie Keyrouz non basta un cd, bisogna vedere le mani" scrive sul forum di "Le Figaro"

Marie Keyrouz nasce a Deir-El-Ahmar, vicino alla città di Baalbek , maronita di origine e melchita di congregazione religiosa, ha fondato l'Institut international de Chant Sacré a Parigi.

Senza trascurare le musiche antiche d'Occidente;  è riuscita suor Marie Keyrouz a fare arte dalla propria vita e fare della propria vita una opera d’arte. Studiosa di musicologia e antropologia, Marie Keyrouz spazia dal gregoriano al repertorio lirico sacro classico (Bach, Haendel, Mozart). La sicurezza della tecnica vocale le permette una grande intensità espressiva; per questo viene spesso accostata a Maria Callas e Oum Kalsoum, la più celebre artista araba della storia.  La sua arte attraversa la spiritualità che attraverso una relazione tra suono e  lingua crea una sintesi artistica,misteriosa, magica dell’intero monoteismo.

Ha cantato sotto le bombe della guerra in Libano, e la sua melodia è diventata un messaggio di pace per tutti i popoli della terra e perchè chi canta, dice suor Marie, "prega tre volte".

leggi qui tutta l'intervista a suor Marie Keyrouz 

Ascolta la sua intervista

Los Caprichos

Francisco Goya, considered to be "the Father of Modern Art", began his painting career just after the late Baroque period. In expressing his thoughts and feelings frankly, as he did, he became the pioneer of new artistic tendencies which were to come to fruition in the 19th century. 

He is more commonly known for his moving and often disturbing oil on canvas; however, he can also be considered as one of the most important and talented etchers ever to have tried the medium. While it is due to his magnificent rococo inspired portraits that he can claim the epithet "Last of the great masters", it is his post-1790 paintings and, more importantly, his etching and aquatints that earn Goya the ascription "First of the moderns".

However, Goya is perhaps better known for creating images critical of changes in the world around him. His later work famously records scenes of violence and destruction during the Napoleonic wars and openly comments on social injustice and senseless cruelty within Spanish society.  Goya bravely expressed these feelings through his paintings and graphic art. Los Caprichos, his first series of etchings, clearly shows his willingness to record the world as he really saw it, with all its horror, tragedy and ugliness.

Animals, Beasts and Monsters

Many of the 80 prints in Los Caprichos contain imagery of animals, beasts and monsters in a variety of comical, melancholy and sometimes disturbing compositions. 

Donkeys, parrots, bats, goblins, devils and witches not only illustrate the extremes of Goya’s imagination but symbolise his observations of the darker themes of human behaviour in Spanish society. 

In Plates 37 to 42 a series of donkeys dressed as humans plays on the common association of the donkey or ass with foolish or stubborn behaviour. Works portraying the donkey as teacher, music connoisseur or doctor, question roles of knowledge and wisdom in society, while another showing a donkey having his portrait painted by a monkey ridicules the pretentious..

Goya’s distorted caricatures of animals and monsters, and everything in between, examine the more comical and disturbing examples of human behaviour in 18th century Spanish society. For the viewer, they are often bizarre, puzzling or uncomfortable to look at, but without a doubt they stimulate imagination and reflection.

more info:

http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/aug2006.html

La diversità è la base su cui si costruisce la vera uguaglianza. -- Moni Ovadia

Moni Ovadia : Lettera di un ebreo agnostico al Papa

".....mi chiamo Moni Ovadia, sono un ebreo agnostico di professione saltimbanco che pratica il suo mestiere contrabbandando la spiritualità dell’esilio ebraico, soprattutto nelle sue espressioni umoristiche e paradossali. Nella vita e sul palcoscenico, sono un “attivista” che, nei limiti delle sue capacità, ma con passione, si impegna a favore dei diritti degli ultimi e delle minoranze, della loro dignità, della giustizia sociale e della pace. Talora mi capita anche di pubblicare le mie personali riflessioni su libri, articoli e altri scritti. Le scrivo per assolvere un dovere e un impegno cogenti. Alcune settimane fa, con decine di migliaia di persone in Italia e non solo, ho condiviso la perdita di un grande amico, un fratello, un Maestro. Si chiamava Andrea Gallo, Don Andrea Gallo, era un prete cattolico. Sì, un prete cattolico!............ continua lettura"