Kuki Gallmann an Italian- Kenyan incredible Woman

Kuki Gallmann is known for her books about her life in Africa but all starts in Italy. In fact Maria Boccazzi was born in Venice in 1943 and when she was more than twenty years old became a mother of a child, Emanuele, while her former husband decided to remarried and move to the United States.

Mary's life changes one evening when after a dinner with friends has a car accident. She is rescued and brought to the hospital where she will meet Paolo Gallmann. The two fall in love and get married and decide to realize a dream that they have in common. Maria in fact is the daughter of a well-known doctor, explorer and archaeologist from Treviso  and Paolo is an agronomist and their dream is to live in Africa. So in the early 1970s they buy a whole ranch in Kenya where they can shaped their dream.

The new couple, with the little son of Maria, Emanuele, move  to Kenya where their new life begins. The beginnings are not easy because Mary is often alone for long periods while her husband is busy in activities that take him away for a long time. Meanwhile, little Emanuele grew up and was sent to study at a College: life after the first difficulties finds its settling in this wild and uncontaminated nature.

One day, however, the tranquility of Maria, naturalized kenyan by the name of Kuki Gallmann, is disrupted by the news of the death of her husband Paolo who died in a road accident on a Mumbasa  street. Kuki is pregnant and five months after the terrible event, a girl baby named Sveva is born. Meanwhile, Kuki's first son, Emanuele returns to live with his mother in Kenya where he had spent much of his childhood, sharing his Mother's enthusiasm and naturalistic initiatives.

Unfortunately, however, a few years after the loss of her husband, Kuki loses also her son. Emanuele in fact trying to extract the poison from a snake to create an antidote is bitten and killed by poison. Despite the pain Kuki accepts the death of her son as a natural fact related to the African life and so decides not to leave but to remain in her country.

In memory of her son and husband, who disappeared shortly from one another, Kuki creates an organization, the Gallmann Memorial Foundation,  dedicated to environmental protection that sees in her vast ranch a shelter for fauna and local flora where are housed numerous scholars, biologists, zoologists... In a short time her initiative is well-known internationally, but also to local crime and to poachers as well, she herself in fact struggles the exploitation of animals hosting and protecting those rape and exploited species such as elephants, black rhinos and buffalos.

But her center is a reference point for the local population as well because Kuki creates within its project also initiatives to rediscovery and hand down  the local traditions such as the wool or the wood processing and the traditional herbal medicine.

For more than forty years Kuki has been pushing forward her loving project for Africa from which she has received many good but also bad emotions, the last one exactly Sunday April 23rd when she was the victim of an ambush in her ranch. In her usual perlustration, Kuki has came down to check the road that had been interrupted by a tree but was shot in the stomach. Imediatelly she was transported to the hospital where she received the first care for being transported by an helicopter to Nairobi where she is taken care of by her daughter Sveva.

The incident is attributed to the shepherd tribes who, due to drought, invade private properties to look for feed to their animals, in fact for this reason unfortunately there are frequent private property infringements.

Kuki, despite being in serious condition, reports that doesn't want to leave the country despite the situation has become very dangerous for a long time. Her daughter, a few days after the accident, says that her 73-year-old mother is stable but in slow improvement because she has the strength of that Nature that she has been protecting for years and which is now protecting her in exchange.

Kiki's life has been descrived by herself in many autobiographical books including "I dreamed of Africa" ​​from which in the 2000 was based the movie starred by Kim Basinger. This movie contributed to the fame of Kuki also to the  International audience, making her the "lady of Kenya" ​​as well as the beloved Karen Blixen.

In this interview to the Kenyan tv Kuki herself tells us her story and mission, just a few months before the shooting: 

Books:

1991 "I dreamed of Africa"

1994 "African Nights"

1995 "The colour of the Wind"

1998 "Night of the Lions"

2001 "Elephants in the Garden"

Gender Pay Day

On 31st March is the Gender Pay Day and OG Gender Opportunity would like to share its article about Gender Pay Gap in Female Soccer that since one year ago was in NoiDonne blog. It is just a year ago but the things are the same.

Although the title refers to Female Sport, this article is  a general and international analysis that moves from USA Female Soccer to the Gender Pay Gap in many EU countries, extra EU Countries and USA.

The Female Football is affected by gender pay-gap

It's time for football European market and inevitably also of digits, but it is go unnoticed that the United States Women's national soccer team won the World Cup and earned a digit millionaire well below than that one received by their fellow men ...

by Silvia S. G. Palandri

In time of the European Football Championship, of soccer market and of numbers and figures, it did not find space, between the networks of national teams, the news that the U.S. Women's national soccer team scored a Bill  through the US Senate which requires equal pay with its male colleagues.

The United States Women's national football team has won the World Cup and for this  has gained an award of $2 million but its colleagues of the German Male National team which  won the same victory in 2014 gained $30 million...everyone can see the glaring disparity that led the Women's national soccer team to protest openly to this treatment of blatant Inequality. The players themselves have estimated to earn as much as 25 percent less than their colleagues.

Senator Patty Murray has thus decided to support their protest and with twenty other senators filed a resolution which has been widely approved. However, the resolution has no legal effect but only a value of public pressure on the Government of football so much that another Senator, Patrick Lealhy, thought to present directly to FIFA another petition but was harshly opposed retaining other issues more urgent and necessary  for the country.

This resolution is not the only proposal on wage equity to lie forgotten, in fact, even the "Fainess Paycheck Act" that would offer further guarantees at a federal level to the equal pay, and that would update the "Equal Pay Act of 1963, is now still in the USA Senate so that  "the Kennedy-era law " is still in force.

The only law recently approved the wage equity was that of 2009, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act signed by President Obama at the beginning of his first term. With this Bill one wanted to mark the existent disequilibrium between male and female salaries trying to enshrine in law the equal pay for equal job.
This law bearing the name of an American citizen, Lilly Ledbetter, who once retired realized to perceive less than 40% compared to her colleagues and that after a legal battle against her former company did not see recognized her instances, losing the case.

It was perhaps to avoid this surprise that in Germany, where women earn 22 percent less than their colleagues, that the family,youth and for women Minister, Manuela Schwesig presented last year a preliminary bill to solve the pay-gap that should have given its effects already in 2016 if it had not run aground in Parliament opposed by many criticisms of both economic viability for companies both for the consequent fear for female employment levels; for someone in fact this equality would discourage businesses in hiring women.

This law furthermore proposes the online publication of the salaries as an instrument of guarantee of equal pay by category so that everyone can compare and verify the adequacy of their remuneration.

In the rest of Europe the situation for women is just as little profitable saw the average pay gap which amounted to 16.4% and where in Spain a women earn 17% less than men , the 15% less in France and receive a paycheck 20% lighter than men in Hungary, 30% in Finland and 19,4% in Estonia, and a  23.4% less in Austria.

The situation in countries that are outside the European Union such as Switzerland is also similar in fact in February the campaign "Equal Pay Day"  triggered with the intent to re-enter the legislative planning for the three-year period 2016-2019, the law for wage equity that is required by the art. 8 of the Constitution and that instead the National Council has excerpted from the legislative programme.
The law for equal pay between men and women envisaged concrete measures that, according to the promoters of the campaign, would allow to overcome the imbalances in pay that in Switzerland stands at 18.4%.

In Italy the situation is no different from the rest of Europe if the estimated percentage of female wages, calculated for work hours, according to a study by the European Union amounted to 6.7% less than men's wages.

And in football? Football and all Italian sports are adjusted by CONI and Federations which did not change the rules for which women's sports are ousted from the professionalism in accordance with a law of 1981, the n.91 of March 23, which defines the requirements of the professional athlete, all of whom are exclusive matters of the Federations. So that Women are and remain  "amateurs".

The National Association of Female athletes, ASSIST, at its annual meeting, held at the national level, wanted to make note of this blatant situation of inequality and discrimination that affects women not only in economic terms but which affects also the level of social status and of performance evaluation.The protest of the athletes has been implemented by the bill n. 1996 in 2015 by the will of the Vice-President of the Senato Chamber Valeria Fedeli (-Minister of Education and University nowadays-) and Senator Josefa Idem and that draws to full professional recognition of the Italian Women athletes.

The bill, "Amendments to the Act 23 March 1981 n. 91 for the promotion of gender balance in the relationships between professional clubs and sports", was presented in July last year and after the reading in the Senate Chamber of the Republic, followed by the presentation, is still awaiting to the hearing.

The FIGC, the Italian Football Federation, for its part is trying a rehabilitation of the role of women's skills. In fact, the women's football clubs are under the National Amateur League, LDN, but for the 2015-2016 season the professional clubs of Men of Level A and B are required to ration at least 20 girls under 21  years old to increase the possibility that women can compete in various categories depending on age.

It was also given the opportunity to sell the sports title to entice professional clubs to be interested in women's football even in the most advanced levels.

These measures were planned under the Planning Guidelines for the Development of Women's Football. Meanwhile, perhaps thanks to these decisions, as a first effect, there was a sponsorship deal for a woman midfielder, Aurora Galli, with a famous brand of Italian shoes and sports products that for the first time has chosen to sponsor a woman footballer .

A favorable assists by the FIGC to the Italian Women soccer that should give its results in time but that can also lead to win the most important game: the equality in every field both economic and professional.

| 27 Giugno 2016

The Global Women's Strike on the International Women's Day March 8th in Italy

Today 8th March in Italy was held the event which affected the whole World and which involved Women internationally. After years this day has become a collective meeting around the World of all Women who have recalled the achievements got but most of all they want to demonstrate and make their voices heard on many needs that the status of Women want to reach. An event that worldwide saw each Country take part with its own specificities: The Global Women's Strike on the International Women's day.

In Italy there are many events that every city has organized to call for unity and action their own female citizen, the more experienced, the less experienced, the young, the baby girls from Mantova to Bologna from Milan to Rome and Naples.

This year it is chosen to celebrate this day in a collective way, after so many years since the claims of the '70s, Women will be in the streets to shout that things do not go well for Women in Economy against the gender gap moreover there are also categories like Sports in which female professionalism is not recognized at all.
In home-care that is not recognized and therefore not paid but that makes go around the entire system of the Country, and the domestic violence: a Woman is killed every two days by her husband, partner, boyfriend or father. 
Futhermore in the health level Women have difficult procedures for a free abortion, there were also controversy on fertility and about the access to medical procreation.
In Education  Italian Women have no place in Literature, History, Art and even in the institutional as in everyday life speech but so also in Toponym of the public space as roads or squares and in the Mass Media.

An image from the Italian blog of OG
with quotes by Mary Wollstonecraft,
Simone de Beauvoir and Olympe de Gouges
with Mimosa emblema of the Italian Women's Day

In particular, it was decided to march today in favor of all those Women who have suffered and suffer violence because one really do something in Italy for this which has now been called a social phenomenon, with the name of "femicide" and which is unfortunately accompanied by appalling figures of crimes that see Women brutally killed.
Italian Women will ask a real Law to protect and give concrete help to many Women who every day suffer violence within their domestic walls without anybody knows it.

The same omen had the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, in his institutional speech he discussed about Peace and pointed out that the presence of Women can make a difference to this condition that is necessary for humanity to progress and that only a law about violence against Women can give a tool  to denounce and achieve freedom also for children involved in acts of violence .

The Law under discussion in Parliament in fact is responsible for the first time to give assistance to abused Women and also to their children who are often witnesses and victims of violence themselves.

The march is promoted by NONUNADIMENO  ( not one less) a Women's network that began to denounce the social phenomenon of violence against Women, embracing the Women's March and even the global strike of Women in both the public and private sectors with the slogan: 'if our lives don’t count then we strike'.

Credits: Image used under license from Freestock.com

And so in agreement with the major national Unions today has been declared the  24-hour  national strike even of the public transport to allow Women and those who want to join the strike even if there has been episodes of deterrence by the smaller Unions that do not have joined the strike.

Many are then the cultural initiatives today all Women in fact will be admitted free of charge in all National Museums throughout Italy and many events are organized in honor of famous and important Women for the Italian History but not only: readings, exhibitions, book presentations , archaeological trails all in the name of Women.

The controversy over the Mimosa, that is all an Italian matter, the flower that is the emblem of the Italian"Women's Day", because once it was natural in the streets and now instead has become a business for florists, and which was chosen by the Italian Parliamentary Teresa Mattei in 1946, remained on the corner compared to the global scope of the event that has seen after thirty years Women to return to the streets all united against violence against women, for new social, political and cultural Rights. Everyone for the occasion dressed in fuchsia and black instead of red as their American or English collegues.

"Tremble tremble, the Witches are back!"* With or without Mimosa ...

_____________________

* This is one of the most famous slogan of the Italian Femminist of the 70’s