Though I'm told it's not normal for Azur employees to work Saturdays, this morning some colleagues and I attended a meeting in town to mark the end of a 6-month project by one of our local partners, ADP (Association Dynamique Plurielle). Their project, which Azur helped fund, explored the issue of sexual harassment in school settings and tried to raise awareness through a series of events and programs with female students and, to cap it off, a twenty-minute video on the subject with footage and interviews from one of Brazzaville's main high schools, Lycée Savorgnan de Brazza. Thus one of the project's angle was that they would raise awareness and address the issue through the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), one of Azur's areas of expertise.
The meeting was held at the Hotel Phoenix in the Makelekele quarter, not far from the market I mentioned earlier. It was an interesting experience for me. On one hand I learned about a very common, accepted and unchecked injustice that hurts a lot girls and prevents them from performing well in school. And, to make things more difficult for them, there is yet no specific law that defines and condemns sexual harassment, so when it occurs there is practically no opportunity for legal recourse. On the other hand, it was interesting to observe how a conference is set up and presented here in the Congo, especially since Azur is in the process of preparing several large- and smaller-scale conferences of our own in the next several months.
Aside from this morning's 'work' I've been relaxing at the house and taking advantage of this being our day with electricity. By 8 or 9 a.m. tomorrow it'll be gone until Monday morning. Tonight I plan on relaxing and hopefully trying a new restaurant downtown, preferably without Lebanese food. Thus far the only food I've eaten away from the house is schwarmas. Saturday night is not schwarma night. Period.
