We’re very excited to be celebrating the second birthday of our blog Akimbo today! We’re so grateful for all the IWHC staff, partners, and colleagues that have contributed to the blog over the past two years – and we’re grateful, too, for our many readers.
We’ve been reflecting lately about ways to improve Akimbo as we enter our third year, and in the coming weeks we’ll be shifting to a schedule with less frequent but more in depth posts. Last fall, when we surveyed our readers and other folks who interact with IWHC online, we got many requests for more in depth reporting on the issues we care about, as well as stories from our partners and colleagues around the world. So that’s going to be our focus in year three.
But for now, let’s spend a few minutes looking back at our favorite posts from the last year:
Kelly Castagnaro, Director, Communications Program
- No Excuses: A Living Experience of the Struggle for Rights: Meena Seshu’s speech on human rights and the HIV/AIDS pandemic is perennially moving and inspiring.
- Sex, Culture, and Human Rights: An African Leader Breaks the Silence: Advocate and IWHC Board Member Josina Machel doesn’t shy away from the truth: “We can talk about gender, we can talk about HIV education, but when it comes down to it, we tiptoe around the influences our cultures have…in our bedrooms.”
- “Prostitutes of God:” Film Mocks, Belittles Sex Workers: How SANGRAM, a non-profit in rural India, used social media to respond to Western media—interesting in terms of the limitations and biases of mainstream media, and also indicative of how rapidly our media landscape has changed.
Lori Adelman, Program Assistant, Communications
- The Reason I Left School: Children of Indian Sex Workers Speak Out: The first video produced by Sangli Talkies, the newly-launched video unit of SANGRAM / VAMP.
- Ten Myths About Sex and Virginity Debunked: This post received a high number of hits and brought information about sex and sexuality to a wider audience. Plus, it gave me the opportunity to highlight ways in which over-emphasis on virginity and purity harms women and girls around the world.
- New Study: Young People Use Condoms more Frequently Than Adults: This post highlighted findings that young people use condoms at nearly twice the rate at which young adults used condoms, and nearly four times that of adults over 40, debunking the oft-cited idea that young people are reckless and careless when it comes to sex.
Audacia Ray, Program Officer, Online Communications and Campaigns
- World Cup and Women’s Health Series: Last summer we covered the World Cup IWHC-style by tracking the records of World Cup countries when it comes to the health and rights of women and girls.
- Brazilian Youth on Their Experience of Comprehensive Sexuality Education: This video features two of our young colleagues from Brazil talking about the impact of our partner Grupo Curumim on their lives.
- In the Interest “Equality,” Malawian Woman’s Identity is Erased: Last spring, when gay rights groups started reporting on a fourteen year sentence a “gay” couple had received in Malawi, we were one of the few voices setting the record straight – the couple was actually straight and included a transgender woman.