We are a little tardy with our Summer 2011 e-newsletter because we have been in fifth gear with both program expansion in Afghanistan and ten year gala preparation in New York. This latest issue of Itihad-e-Zan launches our brand new website. Same organization, same URL, new look!
Check out the new site, send us your feedback, and visit us often. The social media icons on each page will let you share parts of the website easily. Our volunteer Stephan Shaw designed both our old website and this new one. Stephan, who is married to our own Sunita Viswanath, founder and board member of WAW, gives almost all his free time to WAW. Thank you Stephan, and everyone who donates their time to WAW. Meet Stephan and some of our most dedicated volunteers here.
I left Kabul for New York just before Labor Day, and it was a profoundly moving experience to be in New York with my family for the tenth anniversary of 9/11. I came to New York to work on our tenth anniversary gala, which will be held on October 20, 2011, at Bridgewaters, NY. We are not calling our gala a celebration, but rather a commemoration of ten years of front-line work for human rights, for justice, for peace. We are fortunate that Eleanor Smeal and Gloria Steinem are serving as Event Co-Chairs and Christiane Amanpour will deliver the keynote address. We will be honoring The Sister Fund, the women's foundation where Sunita was working when she founded WAW. The Sister Fund provided in-kind support and allowed Sunita to do WAW work on her job throughout our first year of existence.
Here's how you can support WAW: * Attend our gala if you possibly can. You can purchase your ticket(s) on our gala web page. * If you cannot attend, please consider sending WAW a donation. * You might also consider honoring WAW or one of our honorees with an E-Journal ad. On gala night the ads will be displayed on a large screen at Bridgewaters and will also be included on the gala web page. * Please forward our gala information to everyone you know and encourage them to attend or support WAW. You can do this through all your social media venues email, facebook, twitter etc.
We are worried about the rapidly deteriorating security in Afghanistan and the consequences for Afghan women and girls. We must make WAW's gala event a huge success because we will need the money it raises to sustain our work in the coming years. We will need your encouragement and moral support to refuel for the decade to come. As I have said again and again, WAW will never abandon the women and girls of Afghanistan.
October 20th will be an unforgettable evening. I hope you will join me.
Manizha Naderi
WAW in recent press: We were featured in the New York Times on September 9th in an article by new executive editor Jill Abramson reflecting on the state of Afghanistan ten years after 9/11. As always, WAW's work and our message represent hope and fierce commitment. Read the article Here
