Group Helps Arab-American Women Reach Goals
December 2, 2005
Rana Abbas-Chami, left, 26, of Dearborn Heights, Ashley Mammo, center, 37, of Southfield and Siham Awada Jaafar, 44, of Dearborn Heights founded Arab-American Women Advocating for Resources and Empowerment. The organization brings together and creates female leaders in the Arab-American community. "We just want to encourage all women to reach their full potential," Mammo said. (Photos by PATRICIA BECK/Detroit Free Press)
How to join AWARE
The Arab-American Women Advocating for Resources and Empowerment organization is open to anyone.
Annual dues are $10 for members of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, $20 for others.
For more information, call Rana Abbas-Chami at 313-581-1201 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays or e-mail AWARE@adc.org
When Rana Abbas-Chami's boss was organizing a fact-finding trip to the Middle East last year, she begged to go along.
No, said her boss, Imad Hamad, director of the Dearborn office of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
He didn't think the male leaders the delegation planned to meet would be comfortable with a woman in the group. There are a lot of customs in the Middle East that limit contact between women and men.
A few weeks later, Hamad called Abbas-Chami, the deputy director of his organization, from Syria.
"You'll never guess what the (president's) first question to us was," Abbas-Chami recalls Hamad saying. "He wanted to know how come we didn't have any women with us!"
That frustrating experience pushed Abbas-Chami and some friends to form an organization that brings together and creates female leaders in the Arab-American community: Arab-American Women Advocating for Resources and Empowerment, or AWARE.
According to its mission statement, the group's goal is "to raise global consciousness of issues and challenges that are particular to Arab-American women and Arab women around the world."
"Something we hear over and over is, 'It's about time,' " said Abbas-Chami, 26, a Dearborn Heights resident and president of AWARE.
By strengthening connections between Arab women in the United States and Arab women in the rest of the world, AWARE aims to increase understanding and reduce tensions between people in the United States and the Middle East.
Tonight, the group will witness a piece of its influence as the minister of economy and planning from the United Arab Emirates, a woman, gives the keynote address during the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's sold-out, 25th anniversary gala at the Hyatt Regency Dearborn. Abbas-Chami was on the committee that decided to bring the minister to speak.
After the speech, she and other AWARE leaders -- including fellow founding members Ashley Mammo and Siham Awada Jaafar -- plan to make their way to the podium to make sure that they shake the minister's hand.
The three women share control of AWARE and agree that, in general, the estimated 300,000 metro Detroit residents with ethnic ties to the Middle East come from families that are more traditional, more conservative, often more patriarchal than American society.
Why, they asked, are so many women workhorses for Arab-American community organizations but still not members of the board? Why, as a rule, do men still set the agendas while women still set the tables?
Of course, there are exceptions. And it's true that Arab-American families tend to value education very highly, sometimes even for their daughters.
But still, it seemed to Mammo, Awada Jaafar and Abbas-Chami that there was a need for an organization like AWARE.
"All women have something inside that they want to say," said Mammo, 37, of Southfield, an immigration attorney in private practice.
"We just want to encourage all women to reach their full potential," she added.
Mammo is the chairwoman of AWARE, which has signed on 200 members from southeast Michigan. The group took a fact-finding mission to Syria, Lebanon and Jordan last year to meet with and share experiences with women in those countries.
They organized two local networking receptions attended by hundreds of women in March and September and are planning an even larger women's international conference for 2006. There is talk of establishing scholarships, mentoring Arab-American girls in local schools, helping women in the Arabic world market their handicrafts here, and learning lessons from women in the Middle East.
Although the Arab American Chamber of Commerce and the Chaldean Chamber of Commerce have local women's groups, AWARE is different. The chamber groups focus on helping women already in the business world here, while AWARE reaches out to Arab-American girls, homemakers and women in the Middle East as well.
"I think women can impact the ultimate goal of world peace," Mammo said. "They're more sensitive. They're more compassionate. I think we can change the political fabric of the world. That's very idealistic, and it will take a while."
Although the stereotype of women in the Middle East is that they're oppressed because they don't have access to education, have to cover their heads, can't talk to men and can't hold jobs outside their homes, the women of AWARE say the reality is very different depending on where you are in that region.
"Honestly, we can benefit from one another," said Abbas-Chami. "So we want to know how we can work together to iron out some of the issues that we all face together."
Contact *EMILIA ASKARI* at 248-351-3298 or easkari@freepress.com
BY EMILIA ASKARI
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Source: freep.com
