Celebrate Women’s History Month,
SHIN’s Partnership with the NAACP & the
Launch of our Female Voices of Freedom Initiative
MARCH 12TH EVENT POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
As the United States prepares to mark the centennial of women’s suffrage, anti-discrimination organization the NAACP and Sephardic Heritage International in DC (SHIN DC), a cultural diplomacy organization that raises awareness of Sephardic and other underrepresented Jewish heritages, have launched a Female Voices of Freedom Initiative. The initiative celebrates women whose struggles for equality and social justice have made a positive impact on their communities or others. SHIN Director Franz Afraim Katzir says, “We believe that the amplification of those voices will help to build understanding and foster collaboration on issues of discrimination and intolerance today. One of those issues is the surge of hate crimes in the United States that is especially affecting both African American and Jewish communities.” The importance of this kind of collaboration was also emphasized by musician and businesswoman Rihanna back in February after accepting the NAACP’s 2020 President’s Award, saying, “If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that we can fix this world together.”
SHIN, the NAACP and other Female Voices of Freedom participants, including the Religious Action Center, the National Women’s Law Center, the Embassy of Israel, Jewish Women International, the National Council of Jewish Women and the Harriet Tubman Institute, celebrate the contributions of women who have been recommended by their organizations, as well as members of the communities that they serve or represent. The Female Voices of Freedom Initiative includes a powerful narrative tapestry of diverse women and their struggles for equality, curated from those recommendations. Due to current public health issues related to COVID-19, a March 12th gathering to share that booklet — on the week of International Women’s Day and just a month before Passover — has now been postponed. However, the product of that collaboration is published below for Women’s History Month. SHIN hopes that this inaugural initiative, upcoming programs, and the critical partnerships that make those possible will be developed further to support the empowerment of women from diverse communities and to address issues such as gender inequality, antisemitism, hate crimes, and public safety.
The March 12th program, part of the Female Voices of Freedom Initiative that has now been postponed, is to include speakers who are each to apply three questions from the Levantine Passover custom to the progress of women, “Where are you coming from? Where are you going? What provisions do you need to get there?” Speakers are to include NAACP Vice President of Policy and Advocacy & Director of the Washington Bureau Hilory O. Shelton to talk about the trajectory of African American women from not having the vote to being predicted by experts to play a central role in the 2020 presidential election. Minister Tammy Ben-Haim of the Embassy of Israel and nationally recognized lawyer and author Sharon Y. Eubanks are also to speak, as well as SHIN member and author Diana Jean Schemo who is the co-founder of investigative reporting network 100Reporters, the founder of the Double Exposure Investigative Film Festival, and an award-winning veteran national and foreign correspondent, formerly of the NY Times and The Baltimore Sun.
Press Contact: Franz Afraim Katzir, T: (202) 643-4441, ka****@sh****.org
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