Wonderland or Not

Con­ti­nuing my “week of women” pos­tings I rein­tro­duce you to Zai­nab Salbi. Who bet­ter to fea­ture during the pre­lude to Inter­na­tio­nal Women’s Week?

Only 11 years old when her father was cho­sen to serve as Sad­dam Hussein’s per­so­nal pilot, Zai­nab and her family were often for­ced to spend wee­kends with Sad­dam where he watched their every move. Her mother even­tually sent Zai­nab to Ame­rica for an arran­ged marriage, but the marriage that was inten­ded to save her tur­ned out to be another world of tyranny and abuse. Zai­nab star­ted over. She for­ged a new iden­tity as a cham­pion of women sur­vi­vors of war and foun­ded Women for Women Inter­na­tio­nal.

Zai­nab Salbi is an author, acti­vist, and foun­der and CEO of Women for Women Inter­na­tio­nal, an orga­ni­za­tion she star­ted from a base­ment with honey­moon money.

An Iraqi native, Zai­nab Salbi left Iraq behind at the age 19, but she couldn’t leave behind her expe­rience in the Iran-Iraq war, and later the Gulf war. Her past made her sus­cep­ti­ble to the uni­ver­sal plight of women in war. Promp­ted by the known but unad­dres­sed horrors of the camps in the war torn Bal­kan region of for­mer Yugos­la­via, after gra­dua­ting from college in 1993, Zai­nab and her hus­band flew to Croa­tia to dis­tri­bute much nee­ded emer­gency sup­plies and money — dona­ted by her Ale­xan­dria, Vir­gi­nia com­mu­nity. When she retur­ned from this trip she star­ted Women for Women from a base­ment office.

Zai­nab Salbi’s orga­ni­za­tion now ope­ra­tes in the Democ­ra­tic Repu­blic of the Congo, Sudan, Bos­nia — Her­ze­go­vina, Kosovo, Rwanda and Iraq. Women to Women is “a non-profit that helps women in war torn regions rebuild their lives through a holis­tic approach that addres­ses the uni­que needs of women in con­flict and post-conflict environments”.

Zai­nab Salbi is also is the author of Bet­ween Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Gro­wing up in the Sha­dow of Sad­dam and The Other Side of War: Women’s Sto­ries of Sur­vi­val and Hope”.

“Zai­nab Salbi will be online at the Inter­na­tio­nal Museum of Women (IMOW)
on Fri­day, March 6 at 9:30 a.m. PST to ans­wer your ques­tions and dis­cuss her recent work. She is a mem­ber of I.M.O.W’s Glo­bal Coun­cil and is the fea­tu­red spea­ker at I.M.O.W.‘s annual gala on March 4. You can join her chat on Fri­day, March 6 at 9:30 a.m. PST by going to www.imow.org to link to the chat room. To join in the chat, you must log in to your pro­file; if you do not have a pro­file, regis­ter. Sub­mit your ques­tions and com­ments before or during the discussion.”

Explo­ra­tory Links:

Salbi posts perio­di­cally at The Huf­fing­ton Post — Zai­nab Salbi/Huff Po
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Tes­ti­mony before the Senate Foreign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee Uni­ted Sta­tes Senate, June 25, 2003 T
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How do women keep going in war­time? Zai­nab Salbi has sobe­ring ans­wers , a high qua­lity video.
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2006 Washing­to­nian of the Year: Zai­nab Salbi
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Zai­nab Salbi: Bet­ween Two Worlds — you may down­load this lec­ture from WGBH mp3 for­mat, or you can view the video at the link.
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Zai­nab Salbi Helps Women Reco­ver
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Zai­nab Salbi on war, on women for women and of change
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Please Lis­ten to the Women of Iraq by Zai­nab Salbi

A com­ments off For Your Infor­ma­tion Production

Adden­dum because I just caught this:

This week Nobel Prize dot org pays tri­bute to the 34 female Nobel Lau­rea­tes, who, by their work in Phy­sics, Che­mistry, Phy­sio­logy or Medi­cine, Lite­ra­ture and Peace, have con­tri­bu­ted great bene­fits to mankind.

Check it out.