By M.S. Anwar | March 11, 2017
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — A Rohingya women organization
named ‘Rohingya Women Development Network (RWDN)’, the first women-centric
organization of its kind, has been inaugurated here in Kuala Lumpur today (Mar
11).
Members of Rohingya community mostly women and local NGO
members participated in the opening ceremony of the organization and several
media persons/journalists gave it coverage. The event started at 4:00 PM and
ended at around 5:30 PM and was followed by offering meals and handing over
small gifts to the Rohingya women attending the ceremony.
The organization has been founded by young Rohingya women
including refugee women in Malaysia in order to build leadership capacity in
the Rohingya women and create social equality in the Rohingya community in
Malaysia, with a view to also influencing the Rohingya community at home. It
has many Rohingya women living in and around Kuala Lumpur as its members and
shadow members with Ms. Sharifah Shakirah being the founder and director of the
organization and Ms. Arifa Sultana being its the co-founder and Secretary.
Ms. Sharifah Shakirah, the director of the RWDN,
enthusiastically, while talking to Rohingya Vision TV, said “we want to empower
women and solve their domestic problems. We are trying to instill confidence in
them that they can play similar roles to men in building society.”
Ms. Sharifah also said that she’s willing to break social
stereotypes regarding the Rohingya community and how 2016 was a turn-around
year for her.
“Due to due persecutions and dangers surrounding the
Rohingya people in Arakan for decades, women have always lagged behind.
However, in Malaysia which is better than Myanmar for Rohingya, with empowering
women with education and skills, we can change how others see as a whole. We
want to break that stereotype.
“And 2016 has triggered me to do something for the
Rohingya women in an organized way. They were mostly women that became victims
of the violence by the Myanmar military in Arakan.”
According to Ms. Arifa Sultana, the Secretary of the
RWDN, the organization is currently focused on women-centric activities like
Skills and Livelihoods; Language and Literature; Trainings and Empowerment;
Sports; and Charities.
Ms. Arifa said “we are concerned very much about sport.
It is a means to boost one’s confidence and identify one’s talents, be it a man
or a woman. Through sports, we can identify talents and interests of different
girls/women. And we will able to provide them the education of their interests
and skills according to their talents to earn them proper livelihoods.”
Ms. Arifa also emphasized that by doing women centric
activities, they are not trying to overtake men in the Rohingya society.
“We are not trying to overtake men in terms of playing
social roles. What essentially we are trying to do is to empower women so that
they can play hands in hands with the men. It’s all important. Men’s supports
is also very important. We highly believe they will support our initiative.”
The Rohingya Women Development Network (RWDN) was formed
in late December 2016 in the wake of the frequent violence on the Rohingya
women in Arakan State, Myanmar, and has been officially launched today. It is
determined to educate and empower Rohingya women; and reduce their
vulnerability in the hands of the Myanmar armed forces and the human smugglers.
It also collaborates with NGOs in distributing aids to
refugees, the refugees to find means for medical treatments and advocate the
refugee women in need.
Reach out to RWDN at:
Email: rwdn2017@gmail.com
Facebook: facebook.com/rwdn2017
Twitter: @rwdn2017
