Our Power

Dayak sisters, we are women of immensed power.

We have the power to influence our menfolks, our children and the community we live in. We have the ability to multi-task. We have the ability to talk a lot (what men regard as incessant chatter) is actually our power to put to good use. Instead of sitting around and talking bad about so and so, let's use that power to discuss how to use our abilities in a better way.

If you are good at writing, please send in your articles to us at dayakwomen.network@gmail.com and we will post your articles here. If you need our help to edit it for you and post it here, please send it. We will help you air your thoughts for you. If you want to post a recipe, you can also send it to the email above.

Take care Dayung-dayung and Semba-semba.

Goals, dreams and wants

Women,

Have we written down the dreams, wants and goals that we hope to acheive for ourselves for the year 2009? These can be:

1. Individual goals: for our own needs e.g. to lose weight, be a better financial saver, upgrade our skills or to increase our knowledge in a specific area or to be a better person from the spiritual aspect.
2. Family goals: for our husband and children e.g. schedule family gatherings or get-aways, or teach our children to save/money matters etc, or for the single it would be to be a mentor to a niece or nephew etc.
3. Community goals: support for our dayak community e.g. plan or help out at an activity organized, contribute our skills, talents and cash if we have, hold a simple gathering at someone's house to share a skill (e.g. flower-arrangment, weaving etc).
4. Work goals: where we are employed or if some of us are self-employed, goals that meet a certain target and the list goes on.

Let's not forget that we can make a positive impact to our family and our community. We just need to have confidence and to believe in what we do!

A Happy and blessed 2009 to all Dayak women!

Global Enterpreneur Week

Dayak Women,

Here is an upcoming event which we can get involved with. Gather teams together and see how we can be a part of a global community to inspire our young people.

***************************************************************************

Greetings from Warisan Global Sdn Bhd! Trust this mail finds you well. We are pleased to inform you that we are the Malaysian hosts for the Global Entrepreneurship Week (the Week), which is being celebrated globally between 17-23 November 2008. This initiative is founded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and Make Your Mark, and supported globally by Ernst & Young, IBM and NYSE Euronext.

75 countries around the world are taking part in this global event and are coming together for the FIRST time ever to host THE WEEK - an initiative to inspire young people to embrace innovation, imagination and creativity.
As a host, our role is to be the catalyst for activities to be organised by the various participating organisations revolving around entrepreneurship especially those activities targeted at youth.

The objective of this campaign is to catalyze entrepreneurship amongst the young people in our country!

Why Entrepreneurship for the Young?

According to a Report by International Labour Office, (ILO), Geneva, the world's population is growing at a time when traditional, stable labour markets are shrinking. More than 1 billion people today are between 15 and 24 years of age and nearly 40 per cent of the world's population is below the age of 20.
The ILO estimates that 47 per cent of all unemployed persons globally are young women and men and 660 million young people will either be working or looking for work in 2015.

Decent and productive work for youth was always an important issue for the ILO and it became a commitment of the Millennium Declaration adopted by the Heads of State in a situation where reducing youth unemployment becomes one of the most difficult challenges for the future.
The research shows that becoming an owner of a micro or small enterprise could be an alternative for a young person who has an entrepreneurial mindset but also possesses some basic requirements like skills and knowledge.
Awareness about this career option, and the given enabling environment for enterprise creation, play a crucial role for a successful start-up.

How Can You Get Involved?

We would like to invite you and your organization to come in and take part in this global event and join the growing list of Malaysian organisations as a partner organisation to empower youth to embracing entrepreneurship and an entrepreneurial mindset.

You can get involved by registering as a partner or as a member organisation. A partner organisation essentially commits to organising 1 activity during the week, big or small. This activity can also be an existing planned activity of your organisation that you can brand as a GEW activity once you register as a partner.

You will be joining the growing movement of entrepreneurial people to generate new ideas and to seek better ways of doing things.

So if you are interested to be a part of this exciting GLOBAL initiative, we would appreciate it if you could :
1. sign up as partner by following the instructions in the attached instruction sheet and registering yourself as a partner under Malaysia. A partner organisation essentially commits to organising 1 activity during the week of 17-23 November 2008 and this can be ANY activity-small or big. This will also enable you to join our growing list of Malaysian organisations and corporations that are committing to spread the spirit of entrepreneurship amongst youth as part of this global wave! 2. Send us your logo in either AI or other high res format for us to include it in the Malaysian website as well as to include you in other partner collaterals, events and media activities that we may be organising. 3. Advise any media partner you have of this to create greater buzz all around. Pls do not hesitate to contact us if you need any further information or details for this. Please also note that the following dates are considered themed dates during the week : 18th November : Speed Network the Globe Day19th November : Women's Entrepreneurship Day , and20th November : Clean and Green Day

So you may want to take this into consideration when concretising your activity. We are pleased to attach the following documents as further information :

1. The Fact Sheet on GEW
2. Instructions to Register as a Partner
3. Recent article in the Edge
4. The current partner list
5. List of Suggested Activities-for an idea of some of the simple things you could run!

For the latest updates, please visit www.gewmalaysia.com or www.unleashingideasdash.blogspot.com.

If you wish to discuss this further or if you have any questions or wish to seek any clarification, please do feel free to contact us at gew@warisanglobal.com or you can call Dash at 012 2088 743 or Vani at 012-2088749 or Emily at 012-3026779. We trust you will put together with your team an exciting series of activities and make it a part of this global event. Thanks and have a great day!

DashCatalyst – 'the Week' in Malaysia
**************************************************************************

On what Sunday means to a woman

I woke up in a hurry. It's Sunday and I was already going to be late for church and Sunday School. I was feeling sluggish, an extra hour in bed was so inviting. I walked out of the bedroom and into the living room and slumped on the couch to get myself out of sleep.

My 6-year-old daughter woke up 10 minutes later, and plonked herself on the living room couch. "Shall we cancel church going today?" I asked my daughter casually and sleepily. I was met with an angry, piercing stare, a downturn mouth and a body language that suggested mutiny.

"Okay, okay, we go, we go" I said and got up really quickly. Went to the kitchen, put the kettle on, made two "bulls eye" eggs and toast for the husband, toasts for the children. Then it was threatening my daughter to "quickly go and shower or else we don't go to church". I got dressed, she got dressed and out the door we went.

Church service is 9am, the second service. We arrived 9:20am. "Not bad", I thought. By the time I had ensured that daughter was safe in Sunday School, I finally made it to the second last pew of the church from the back door.

It was the preaching session and today's topic was appropriately, "What does Sunday mean to you as a Christian?" I grimaced in my seat when the lady preacher talked about how we treat Sunday - we don't rush as much as when we go to work. "Coming to church late also never mind, as long as I am in church and receive the Holy Communion. That's our attitude. We don't give God the same priority as we give to our work." If there was a tribunal going on this morning, I would have been pronounced "Guilty" for that attitude.

I protested internally though after hearing the preacher.

Don't they know that a mother and wife or a woman does need her "downtime" too? Why can't she have the liberty to relax a little in her priority on Sunday? Isn't that day designated a "Rest" day? I know we know it to mean that this day is dedicated to God - going to church for fellowship and holy communion and corporate worship.

But surely a woman is entitled to relax, too, and just be a woman. Oh well, only another woman, mother and wife would understand me.

What do you Dayak mothers, wives and women say about this - on being a Dayak woman in this century?