My personal journey to PulseWire: painting my landscape

I am lucky I live in a wonderful sunny country where life is good and I have not to struggle to survive. There is nothing heroic in my daily life nevertheless I feel my voice should be heard I feel I have something to say, something that could be interesting that illustrates what's going on in the country of “bella vita”- that is Italy. I had the chance to travel all around Europe and to live in Sweden and Austria for a while. It changed completely my view about my country and I began to think seriously about women's rights and to gather informations and data.
The result of my increasing interest in the topic is stunning. In Italy the gender gap is wide in every field and women are discriminated in the economic and political sphere, it is the worse place where to live for a woman in the Europe Union. These findings are motivating me to write a blog about gender issues in Italy and about women's rights worldwide with a focus on middle east and muslim women in the west (related to my accademic background). I had though it would have been useful to write the blog in english to reach a wider audience and exchange informations and best practices with other countries but I didn't feel enough confident with the language. I had started looking for training materials in the web when I came across worldpulse and VOF initiative. This was my chance to learn how to manage an online journal and to force myself to write in english. I wrote my first post for this contest last week and I had so many comments it is really rewarding. People understand what I'm talking about and they even like it.
I study economic development and I have been studing arabic for years. I went in Yemen a couple of summers ago to study arabic and I got to know the women beneath the burqa. What I learned from that experience is that it is easier and worthy that every voice speaks up for itself. You know your country, your story your tradition, we can argue, exchange points of view and informations but you are the best painter of your landscape. I can describe what I see, women wearing black burqa for example, but not how you feel and what is better for you. This is what I like most about worldpulse, it gives the possibility to speak up.This kind of citizen journalism has two big strenghts it comes directly from the source, from the grassroot level. Wonderful personal stories that are the story of a single woman, but also an authentic split of her community and its culture. The other strenght is that it points out a female feature, the collective action as a mean for empowerment. In every form, networking gives women greater access to power. First of all it empowers women because they share concerns and they don't feel alone, women feel they are struggling for their rights with other women: the request has legitimacy and the voice is louder.