This year's federal budget is devoting more than $114 million to what the Obama administration calls an "evidence-based approach." Abstinence-only programs will still be funded, but most of the money will go to communities that choose programs that have shown they reduce teen pregnancy. This NPR article profiles one evidence-based program that was first implemented in after-school programs in New York City in 1984.
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Commentary on dispelling myths about women's philanthropy features the Global Fund for Women and Women's Funding Network (Huffington Post)
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Forbes magazine reported earlier this year that the top four philanthropists in India are all women. In the United States, the latest statistics show that there are more women controlling more wealth in the U.S. than ever before. (Of those in the wealthiest tier of the country -- defined by the I.R.S. as individuals with assets of at least $1.5 million -- 43 percent are women.) Furthermore, women are reported to control 83 percent of household spending and more than 50 percent of family wealth. The reality is that women, strengthened by increasing economic power and education, are the rising wave of philanthropists.
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In Syria, the fight for women's rights means helping both genders (Christian Science Monitor)
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Bassam al-Kadi sees nothing strange in being the male head of Syria's leading women's rights organization, the Syrian Women's Observatory (SWO) in Damascus. The mission of SWO is to spread knowledge about women's rights. Its reports and articles are posted in Arabic and English on the SWO website alongside a list of domestic and international laws relevant to the issue. Since Kadi founded SWO in 2004, Syrian media coverage of the rights of women - as well as those of children and the disabled, also areas of SWO's work - has increased exponentially. "I am not defending women, I am defending society," Kadi says. "I as a man suffer if my wife has been subject to violence and is treated as a second-class citizen. [Then] we have an unstable relationship and our children suffer." In short, he says, "Our society cannot function when we do not treat one another with respect."
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New York State Senate Passes Domestic Workers Bill of Rights (New York Times)
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Last week the New York State Senate passed a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, that, once reconciled with the version already approved by the Assembly, would make it the first in the country to require new rights for nannies, housekeepers and other caregivers. Under current law, domestic workers are not guaranteed a number of standard workers benefits. This new law would fill those gaps, providing six paid holidays, seven sick days, five vacation days, while also requiring a 14-day termination notice or severance pay and limiting the work week to six days. It would apply to all domestic workers in the state, both documented or undocumented, working on the books or off.
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