Indonesia's PKK gets UNESCO award

Indonesia's PKK gets UNESCO award

By Santi WE Soekanto

BEIJING (JP): Indonesia's grassroots movement for the welfare
of families, known by its local acronym PKK, was internationally
recognized yesterday for its leading role in a global campaign
against illiteracy.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) granted to the PKK (Pembinaan Kesejahteraan
Keluarga, or Family Welfare Movement) the Noma Prize in a
ceremony marking International Literacy Day. The ceremony was
held on the sidelines of the ongoing Fourth World Conference on
Women.

The movement's chairwoman, Mrs. Yogie S. Memet, who is the
wife of the Minister of Home Affairs, accepted the award from
UNESCO Director General Federico Mayor.

The prize, named after the late Japanese literary figure
Shoichi Noma, was given to Indonesia for "having created a
national movement conducted by the wives of civil servants and
dedicated to the education and social welfare of women."

The organization won the award for "having emphasized the
fundamental importance of educating women and girls as a means of
contributing to long-term family welfare in a rapidly changing
world," according to a UNESCO statement.

PKK, it said, has demonstrated "the effectiveness of combining
literacy and post-literacy activities with income generating
activities as a means of encouraging learning, alleviating
poverty and promoting family welfare".

UNESCO yesterday also organized a discussion on the education
of women and girls featuring a number of experts and well-known
figures, including the agency's Goodwill Ambassador actress Jane
Fonda. Indonesia's expert Sjamsiah Achmad and Egyptian First Lady
Suzanne Mubarak were also speakers at the event.

In his address to the seminar, Mayor talked about "women's
empowerment and women in power" and pointed out how the two terms
are inseparable from the question of access to education.

"We must empower women to enable them to exercise power ..We
must empower women because today some two-thirds of the 900
million illiterates between 15 and 60 years of age are women."

He pointed out that over 60 percent of the 130 million out-of-
school children are girls. "Women and girls constitute a large
majority of the world's educationally excluded and un-reached."

"Education is empowerment, is liberation, is giving everybody
the capacity to decide for themselves," he said. "Equality of
opportunity and the reduction of female poverty will only be
achieved when women are able to play their full part in the
development process, which includes helping to shape it."

Ensuring equal access to all forms of learning opportunities
is crucial for women's empowerment and access to decision making.
He said 70 percent of those living in absolute poverty, which
amounts to some 1.3 billion worldwide, are women.

However, only six percent of government ministers are women,
and less than 10 percent of all parliamentarians are women, he
said.

The conference proper yesterday was still filled with speeches
by leaders from participating countries, including the first
ladies of Burundi, Nigeria, Bolivia, and number of
representatives from non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Patricia B. Licuanan of the Philippines, who chairs the Main
Committee in charge of deliberating the conference's Draft
Platform for Action and the Beijing Declaration, reported further
progress in the committee's activities.

Two working groups, in charge of different sections in the
documents, have been able to "clear about half of the total
brackets in the statements on human rights and armed conflicts"
in the draft.

"Much progress is being made," she said optimistically,
pointing out that although the working groups, and the contact
groups established to facilitate negotiations, will have to work
late this weekend, the committee will be able to convene again on
Monday.

"If I'm lucky, the meeting of the committee on Monday will be
dull, because it will consist mainly of participating countries
expressing approvals" of the various points in the draft, which
will be the world's guidelines for the advancement of women.

She admitted that debates were still occurring over issues
which were known to be polarizing, such as a woman's right to her
reproductive health, which involves the issues of abortion and
birth control.

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