Danya Bashir

A Festa da Literatura e do Pensamento do Norte de África inicia-se a 22 de Junho com um debate em que participarão vários autores de blogs do Norte de África e Médio Oriente. Na impossibilidade de apresentar todos os autores e blogs fundamentais que  são activistas fundamentais na cena política destas regiões vamos apresentar alguns.

Hoje, Danya Bashir Hobba, da Líbia.

DANYA BASHIR HOBBA (Líbia, 1989) é autora e ativista social. Venceu duas vezes o Concurso de Empreendedorismo Jovem dos Emirados Árabes Unidos. Durante a revolução libanesa, organizou remessas de ajuda humanitária, para tratamentos médicos e necessidades básicas na Líbia. Recentemente participou na conferência “Yahoo Change Your World”, no Cairo, no painel para as mulheres revolucionárias onde discutiu o papel da comunicação social, de modo a garantir os direitos das mulheres na nova Líbia. Também foi destaque em ”20 Empowering Women to be followed on Twitter”, pela Comunidade de Mulheres Empreendedoras, e nomeada pela CNN como Agente para a Mudança.

Danya Bashir is only 20 years old, but she’s already a business owner. She is a two-time winner (the first and only female) of the United Arab Emirates Young Entrepreneurship competition, helping her launch her company “Relora,” which focuses on stress management.

But the biography on her Twitter account reveals her most lofty goal yet: “The next president of Libya.” Just last year, this seemed impossible in a country where Moammar Gadhafi’s notorious “Green Book” of political philosophy decreed that a woman’s place was in the home.

Born in Arizona and educated in the UAE, Bashir spent summers in Libya, but had limited contact with most people, even her relatives.

“My father was a political exile on the blacklist, so I wasn’t able to fully connect to the country,” she says, deeming her father her hero. “The biggest crime Gadhafi committed was corrupting people’s minds.”

During the revolution, Bashir organized shipment for medical treatment and basic needs in Libya. She says 57 percent of the population in Libya is made up of women, and they mostly played a role behind the scenes — running weapons, smuggling medicine and gathering intelligence. With the fall of Gadhafi, they are reveling in a new freedom to mobilize, but the male-dominated, tribally based society still has a long way to go. Though the country has witnessed a blossoming of dozens of nongovernmental organizations led by women, the 51-member Transitional National Council has just one female member.

“They need guidance on all fronts, we are starting from zero,” Danya says, “but the good thing about this is, people here in Libya are motivated and thirsty to learn about their rights, what it means to really be free, and how they can voice their opinions — we just need the place and people to help guide and teach us. We’ll get there.”

in CNN.

Danya Bashir Hobba no Twitter.