SAVE Sisters Celebrate International Women's Day

Women without Borders / SAVE has gathered the voices of women from around the world to celebrate the occasion of the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day. The below statements remind us of the strength and commitment of our sisters around the globe.

Edit Schlaffer, Executive Director of Women without Borders / SAVE
We are looking back on 100 years of global women’s commitment to making the world a better place for everyone - for women, men and children. It has certainly been an uphill struggle and our journey is not yet over. Women have shaped the most important movement of the 20th Century, changing the way we live together in families, in communities, and in the public arena. Women have proven that they carry a lot of moral authority- corruption is at its lowest levels when women are involved in decision making bodies, good governance is more often executed when women are walking the halls of power, and civil society led by women is challenging despotic regimes. This global female energy will contribute to positive change. Women without Borders is proud to be a part of these exciting developments.

Today we announce the new SAVE Witness Project, which puts a face to the tragic aftermath of terrorist attacks. The project will create a network of eyewitnesses who provide the young generation with alternative role models. These witnesses will share their stories to promote reconciliation rather than revenge. SAVE Global is creating new pathways for the young generation to gain access to testimonials of the consequences of terrorism, in order to expose them to the reality of the dangers of extremist ideologies. Women as mothers, educators, journalists, and activists will lead the way for this SAVE Global Counter-Extremism Education Campaign. Rather than implementing an educational campaign years after the occurrences, the SAVE Witness project seeks to act swiftly and comprehensively at the height of the threat of terrorist activities around the globe.

We wish you a happy International Women’s Day, and congratulate you for taking a stand, both in your own life and for the advancement of the women around you. Let us not forget: the personal is political!


Nadia Al-Saqqaf, SAVE Yemen member and editor of the Yemen Times
During my work as a journalist and activist I have come across so many stories of women in Yemen whose lives could have been much better had they known that they had alternatives. “I did not know who to turn to”, “I did not think that I had a choice”, “I was too weak to object”, “I was told that my opinion did not matter” are a few of many statements I hear over and over again. These women needed to feel that they are not alone in their ordeal and that they have the right to better treatment, support and a dignified life. Unfortunately during conflict, women and children are always the most vulnerable. They are the first to be sacrificed and the ones hit hardest by tragedies. But they are also the ones who put the pieces together and find strength to reconstruct families and societies in the aftermath of disaster. Tapping into women as a resource of strength for any society is a sure plan for progress and stability. Today, Yemen is going through political instability as the tide for change sweeps across the region. Surprisingly it is a number of women who, alongside men, are leading this change. Yet as always, politics is made by men and victories are negotiated by men. It is in such times that we need to pay close attention to the women of the society and involve them in the decisions that will shape the future of the country. We need to empower women and involve them in decision making so that they feel that they have an alternative and that their opinions matter.


May de Silva, SAVE Northern Ireland member and Director of Women into Politics
On the 100th anniversary of the launch of International Women’s day it is important that we recognize that millions of women worldwide are still being discriminated and disadvantaged though war and conflict. I hope that through our partnership working with Women without Borders-SAVE, we can work towards including women as agents of change just as our sisters achieved 100 years ago. In Northern Ireland we continue to support the women through education and awareness raising sessions so that the ethos survives for decades to come.

Archana Kapoor, SAVE India coordinator
Indian women are articulate, argumentative and empowered. Their voice is being heard and respected both at home as well as in the Indian Parliament. Increasingly, they are at the vanguard of civil society movements demanding justice for their sisters and others. Whether it is in Kashmir or the conflict ridden areas of northeast, it is they who suffer the most when blood is spilled on the streets or their sons are killed. It is important that the voices of our sisters in different parts of the country get louder and stronger, that they are heard. It is important that women believe in themselves and realize that they can make a difference in the way peace is negotiated. Women have to join forces and come out on the streets to fight atrocities, be it in Kashmir or Cairo! It is time to get into the driver’s seat. SAVE India is helping women do just this and more. It is helping women realize their potential to make a difference both at home and outside.

On this International Women's Day, I would like to congratulate all those women who showed the courage to raise their voices against the tyrant rulers in the Arab world. I do hope that soon SAVE’s efforts will be able to throw out those who promote extremist ideologies and spread fear through acts of terror.

Siham Abu Awwad, SAVE Palestine member
The woman that can deal with her pain can deal with anything. I believe as a woman, a mother and a sister that I have the power to change the situation through my humanity and my strength. I believe in my voice. My voice can reach everywhere, demanding a safe future for my kids and my nation through me as a woman. Just believe in yourself.

SAVE Conference Update--the first two days...

On May 24, 15 women from Pakistan, Yemen, Northern Ireland, Palestine, Israel, Bosnia, Indonesia, India, and Somalia came together to start a week of intensive workshops to launch SAVE’s first global campaign: Mothers for Change! which seeks to empower and enable women to fight violent extremism on the front lines—in their homes and communities, where people may be hijacked by radical ideologies. In this training camp, the participating women—SAVE leaders and future facilitators—have already had the chance to learn about and model a variety of strategies for forming mothers groups in their home countries and to start dialogue processes to initiate understanding and conflict resolution.

The workshops are taking place in Carinthia, Austria, where the participants have the chance to create a shared group identity and develop a coordinated plan for the implementation of Mothers for Change! Despite the range of educational and professional backgrounds and the variety of ethnic and religious affiliations represented within the group, the determination of these women to transform their societies has brought them together in a common purpose.

The SAVE workshops offers a platform to women activists around the world to share and learn from each other. Representatives from Women Into Politics, an NGO in Northern Ireland, are leading the workshops to share the community-based strategies that they have developed to help bring together Catholic and Protestant groups in their country. Activists from Yemen and Pakistan have found commonalities in the challenges they face in societies with restricted women’s rights and low literacy rates, and they have been able to learn from each other and exchange ideas for the future. Other activists from Bosnia, Somalia, and Palestine are able to discuss crucial implementation strategies with their peers, such as reaching out to target groups, defining a clear mission, and moving from vision to reality.

These workshops also allow women the ability to offer fellowship and support across boundaries through both shared grief and hope. The participants are taking part in Storytelling workshops, which are process-oriented dialogue sessions for conflict resolution and reconciliation. The SAVE Sisters are being trained to be Storytelling facilitators, and they are learning how they can foster constructive dialogue in their countries and to reach out to vulnerable female populations through community education. In these ways, concerns about social, economic, and political stability are being paired with issues in the security realm in order to re-envision lasting solutions to global security problems. These new voices are critical to the development of alternative security solutions—to moving from ideological discourse on a theoretical level to tangible policy solutions that create change at the community level, utilizing female “Know How” and women’s central role in the family and civil society.

Unfiltered Voices: Fahmia al-Fotih' and May de Silva

Fahmia al-Fotih’, SAVE Yemen Coordinator, Sana’a, Yemen
Coming from a tiny village and a normal family that has nothing to do with politics, I was lucky to be awarded a MBI Al Jaber Foundation scholarship to go to London to study International Relations and Politics. It was there in London where I met Dr. Edit and Elisabeth by coincidence in a conference and was introduced to Women Without Borders organization for the first time. This coincidence has turned into a commitment to work with WWB’s counterterrorism initiative, SAVE.

Earlier in my career, I joined media that was a very male-dominated field, yet was like a resort to vent all my angry and rebellious feelings against the injustice and violations of rights women were subject to. From there, I have started building my human rights knowledge and thinking how best I could contribute to my country as a woman. Later, working first with the United Nations Development Program and then with USAID has tremendously engaged me more in development and gender issues where women’s participation is considered a backbone for moving forward. I strongly believe that change can be brought by women.
May da Silva, Director, Women Into Politics, Belfast, Ireland
As feminist, I strive to work for equality for all, irrespective of a person's gender, race or religion. I feel that society should have equality for all or equality for none. This was the motto of one of Northern Ireland's late loyalist politicians, an ex-paramilitary, David Irvine. A terrorist turned politician who advocated that "We cannot choose bits and pieces of equality when it suits us."

My work is not over in Northern Ireland and internationally. I'm very inspired by what I've heard tonight, and to see SAVE now, taking shape with new contributors. I am greatly encouraged to see the potential for this campaign to become global.

I'll finish with a quote of someone who has inspired me, the late Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop. She once said, "If you think you're too small to have an impact, then try going to bed with a mosquito."

Unfiltered Voices: Nadia al-Sakkaf and Christie Coombs

In February 2010, women from all over the world came together for the second Global SAVE Conference in Vienna, Austria. Below are some excerpts from the conference participants about who they are, how they got here, and what their vision of the future looks like. For more information about our conference, download the conference report here.


Nadia al-Sakkaf, Editor of the Yemen Times, Sana’a, Yemen

“In 2005, I became the Editor-in-Chief of the Yemen Times, which Yemen's first English-language newspaper. I have grown many white hairs since then because of the tension, not just because of meeting deadlines and media work, but also because there's so much you get exposed to. You hear the stories, and you assume the responsibility of being the spokesperson for the people.


Many journalists, well-established journalists, feel the heavy weight of the responsibility of knowing that you have to fight for your people's rights. You have to be the voice for the voiceless. It becomes heavy. And if it weren't for meetings like this, I would have quit a long time ago.”

Christie Coombs, Journalist, Founder and President of the Jeffrey Coombs Foundation, Massachusetts, USA

“This is the farthest thing that I ever thought I would be doing, growing up as a little poor kid—the youngest of 12—in Arizona. But my husband was killed on 9/11. I haven't witnessed the kind of horror that you have seen, but I certainly have lived it. I've held six inches of my husband's remains in my hand. Soon after the attacks that killed Jeff and so many others, I decided it was time to teach my kids a lesson about paying it forward, and we held a big fundraiser to raise money to help other 9/11 families that had been impacted by losing someone on September 11th. And we took that money and sent it to immigrants who were working at the restaurant at the World Trade Center, and to adult children of parents who died in the terrorist attacks, because they weren't receiving money like the traditional families were.

I think [this conference] gives us the opportunity to remind Americans in particular that terrorism is something that has hit our country, and it's likely to hit again. It's no longer something that hits other countries. It’s something that we need to be aware of, and we need to do what we can to stop it, even if it's just making people aware of what's going on around them. I think we are taking a stand that we're against terrorism and we want to do something to make it stop. So this is an incredible experience. It's very new to me to be working with a group like this.”

"Edit Schlaffer: Great Accomplishments in Small Steps" by Isabella Lechner

In the past week, Edit and SAVE have been the subject of several major interviews and features in Austrian newspapers, including the following piece, which was published in Die Standard. Die Standard is a section of Der Standard, a highly-regarded daily newspaper published in Vienna, that focuses primarily on women's issues and themes. It is a great honor for Edit and SAVE to receive such positive coverage!


To see the original publication in German, you can go to this link: http://diestandard.at/1266279037850/Edit-Schlaffer-Grosse-Leistung-in-kleinen-Schritten. Our translation follows below!

Edit Schlaffer: Great Accomplishments in Small Steps

By Isabella Lechner, 18 February 2010

The social scientist was selected as one of the “21 Leaders for the 21^st Century” for her counterterror platform SAVE – Sisters Against Violent Extremism.

“I don’t believe in the good in the world, but I believe that we can tame the bad,” says Edit Schlaffer, the chairwoman of Women without Borders. Women’s eNews, the leading US news agency, has selected the committed social scientist as one of the “21 Leaders for the 21^st Century.”

“I am very excited to have been chosen-the recognition of SAVE Global serves to encourage all the women who are involved; I am only the symbolic figurehead,” said the “leading lady” during a discussion with dieStandard.at. Schlaffer is the first Austrian to receive the award; Sheikha Lubna, the UAE Minister for Economics and Planning, and the philanthropist Esther Hewlett have received the award in the past.

Women who advocate for improvements in women’s lives around the world are honored as “Leaders for the 21^st Century.” Edit Schlaffer and the SAVE women attempt to do so on a daily basis through their personal fight for increased security: “We are trying to fight terrorism where it begins: at its base,” Schlaffer explains. “Women are the architects of a peaceful and equal world; they have good sensors for finding alternatives to violence and for developing a new culture of dialogue and social interaction.”

Terrorism and the Young Generation

Welcome to the SAVE/Women without Borders blog! This is your space to respond to blog postings and questions, to discuss your ideas with other students from around the world, and to make suggestions on how to best combat violent extremism.

The young generation holds the world’s untapped potential for fighting extremism—you alone decide how you want to express your views!

Why should we still talk about terrorist or extremist events that happened in the past? Why is it important that women become part of the international dialogue? What role does religion play? And, most importantly, what can you do today and tomorrow to challenge extremist ideologies before they manifest themselves in violence?

All the best,
Edit