Alison Jones Photography

March 8 is International Women's Day

Margorat Wangui now works with her husband using a pump that allows them to grow cabbages in wet and dry seasons atop the east wall of Kenya’s Rift Valley. Their home is electrified with their increased profits.

I’ve enjoyed photographing women for decades. Last year I spoke to Voices of African Mothers during the 55th U.N. Status of Women session. During my 3 months in Kenya working for No Water No Life®, I’ve noted many changes in women’s roles since I first came in 1985.

 LEADING: I attended a Global Peace Initiative of Women meeting at UNEP Headquarters as guest of conservationist Kuki Gallman. I talked with peace-builders, environmentalists and other women healing our environment and transforming our world. (See Notes.)  

EQUALIZED: On assignment for KickStart, I saw teams of women and husbands working together on rural Kenyan farms with pumps that irrigate crops during wet and dry seasons. (See Kickstart Photos.)
 
SUPPORTED: In a No Water No Life Lecture at Rekero Camp in the Maasai Mara, I told 30 men that Africa’s women and girls spend 40 billion hrs/year carrying water, limiting their schooling and productivity. Later, around a campfire, they discussed how to help women burdened by water buckets and stop charcoal burning.

These experiences led me to post “Photographing Women,” a 10-year-old commentary I wrote for a “Soul of Woman” exhibit. My musings on women from East Africa, Europe and the USA are still pertinent today!

Please join me – both men and women - in celebrating the global feminine energy on International Women’s Day, 2012!  (You can follow the day on Twitter!

Salaams from Kenya!   Alison M. Jones

“Our husbands shall not come to us reeking with carnage… Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”  
--
Julie Ward Howe, author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, when she proposed an
annual Mothers Day for Peace Committed to Abolishing War.

View Photo Galleries of Women and Girls:

Girls Worldwide   Women Worldwide    Mother and Child

“I find that through the study of women, you get to the heart--the truth--of the culture.”  
--Shirin Neshat, video artist