ProudlyTunisian

I was surfing into my Facebook wall when I've seen an interesting post by Muhammed Asshir , a friend of mine and activist from Pakistan who works as the Program Manager at We Can End All Violence Against Women Pakistan. He posted this picture with a description that " A distant dream came true! Its the first ever Children Parliament of Pakistan "! At a first glance, I thought it might be something like Model United Nations or Model European Union. However, actually this is not a Model UN Conference or Model Parliament! This is a real Children Parliament of Pakistan, the first ever Children Assembly in Pakistan with more than 200 children coming across 36 districts of Pakistan,in particluar from the marginalized and disadvantaged backgrounds.  I felt a special pride of these kids and asked Aashir about t he event . He said:" it is just like the Pakistani Parliament, starting from reading holy verses of the Quran, to the national anthem when all the parliament...

Last year was an exciting year for many nations, as General Elections took place in different continents from the United States of America to Sierra Leone, Ghana to Japan, France, Serbia, Netherlands, Armenia as well as elections of transitional governments in Libya and Egypt. However, this year, all attention is directed to Kenya. Having visited Kenya twice myself, I’ve fallen in love with the country, the culture and the people. The story started even from the airport when I was taking my visa and the officer said “shukran”! I thought maybe he was trying to speak my language as he saw that I am from Tunisia. But, within a few hours of being in Kenya, I heard even more Arabic-sounding words, like “marhaba”, “Ahsante”, “sabah al kheer”.  I found out that Swahili, the official language of Kenya, is actually derived from Arabic, my mother tongue!  Since then, my stay in Nairobi became a continuous learning journey. I was walking in the street and saw “...

Yesterday, I was asked by American freshmen students during the Arabic Cultural Hour I organized : "Do people in Tunisia live peacefully with each other". My answer was: "We do because we have been raised on a culture of tolerance and solidarity". I was even giving examples of how we saved and hosted the Jews during the Holocaust or how the extended family stand together in crises. However, what I see today in Tunisia is none of our culture, spirit or grandma stories about the 50s and 60s. Under two dictatorships, people were exiled, jailed, tortured, oppressed by those in power but NEVER assassinated. Though all the frustration it has been through these last two years, the Tunisian society has started to take a political shape, from over 100 emerging parties in 2011 to three major blocs today, from bullshit discussions and unknown figures on media outlets to diverse constructive debate, solid views and interesting figures and leaders' positions, from...

It is high time for young women to empower young women. All what women need is to be given a voice then everything will be better... Today is the birth of a new initiative called " The Voice of Women "which is led by young women who are proud of been women and believe in the power of technology and new media to make the change. All what we do is training, supporting and mentoring girls and women to get their voices be heard locally and globally and therefore identify their needs to solve their problems. I am very proud and committed to be part of this initiative that I believe will grow to have a tangible impact on communities around the world. Check out our website here: http://vowinitiative.org/meet-the-team/mentors/ Check out our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Voice-of-Women-Initiative/175679632572432?fref=ts Follow us on Twitter:  @vowinitiative Connect with us through email:  vowinitiative@gmail.com

Part of my duty as a citizen journalist/ blogger, I realized that I have to get people's voice more heard than just reporting the reality under my personal views. Therefore, I am starting today, December 10th, 2012- the Human Rights Day- new series of videos I call "Human Rights Voices". A lot of people think this world is getting worse and worse with all the conflicts we are witnessing, the challenges we are facing, the climate change, the economic crisis, the increasing poverty rate etc.. It seems that the world is giving birth to more corrupt minds. However, I've been meeting everyday inspiring people who care about our planet and other people's well-being... people we think do not exist anymore but they are around if we just listen to their stories and give them a VOICE then we will be astonished with their perception of life. For that purpose, I will be committed to get the Human Rights Voices to be heard, till we realize that in fact, we all have the same...

I dedicate this piece to the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign which runs from November 25 th to December 10 th ,2012 Published at WLUML We are people around the world that have different backgrounds, speak different languages, hold different nationalities but unfortunately as women we suffer from the same gender inequality and gender based-violence anywhere in the world. The violence starts when we were floating in our moms' womb because the dad, the family and community want a Boy till we grow up and find ourselves judged and punished by the society for the only reason we are “women”. Three days ago, I watched a documentary entitled “Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan”. It shows that even when people try to make women happy, they terrorize them! They call it funny tradition but it is not funny at all. In fact, Kyrgyzstan is a country that I’ve never visited and never met someone originally form there. However, as in Kyrgyzstan, a tiny count...