Ripple effect

Two articles published in the China Daily caught my eye on my way to Manila from Xiamen.

The first one talked about concerns raised by financial leaders from the Group of 20 after US President Donald Trump unilaterally imposed high tariffs on imported steel and aluminum products. This move provoked strong opposition from the US business community and retaliatory measures from US trading partners.

In the G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors held in Buenos Aires, they said the tariffs fly in the face of the new world trade order which opposes protectionist measures.

The Trump administration has imposed additional tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods earlier this month, using his America First policy as an excuse, forcing China to take retaliatory action and levy tariffs on US imports.

The use of tariffs as a protectionist measure has been outmoded under the World Trade Organization rules.

The second article, meanwhile, was about India’s move to withdraw a controversial tax on sanitary pads.

Sanitary pads will now have 100 percent exemption from the GST or national goods and services tax. These products were subjected to the 12 percent tax beginning July 2017.

Why on earth should the world concern itself with taxes on sanitary pads?

According to the China Daily report from AP-Reuters, a national survey showed that around 60 percent of young women aged 16-24 do not have access to sanitary pads. Activists say the tax has become one of the biggest barriers to education for girls who are forced to stay home due to lack of access to clean hygiene products, while also facing stigma and lack of toilets in school.

Menstrual periods are among the leading factors for girls to drop out of school in India.

The same report revealed that more than a third of girls in South Asia miss school during their periods to due lack of access to toilets or sanitary pads.

Both actions- that of Trump and the one of the Indian government – can change the world.

India’s move may be small, but its ripple effect is huge.

Let me quote from the late US Senator Robert Kennedy: “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

Empowerment through education

One should always be proud of his or her past, no matter how humble or dark it is, especially if it was one that molded a person into what he or she is today.

Late last year, I met this highly educated and accomplished Filipina who is always proud to share that she grew up in the slums.

Now, she is the first female president of the Utah Valley University (UVU) in the United States.

Meet Astrid Tuminez.

According to the school’s website, Astrid was unanimously chosen from a field of international and national candidates to head the publicly funded university starting this fall. She will be the seventh president and first woman leader in the university’s history.

UVU board of regents chairman Daniel Campbell said Astrid has proven to be a dynamic leader across academic, non-profit, public policy, and corporate sectors.

She was voted unanimously by a 24-member selection committee at UVU and will succeed Matthew Holland, the school’s president since 2009.

Of Astrid, Utah commissioner of higher education David Buhler only has the highest praises. He said that out of an impressive field of candidates, she rose to the top in the search for the next president to lead UVU.

UVU as of last year had 37,282 students and is the largest public university in the state of Utah.

Astrid, currently works with Microsoft Southeast Asia as regional director for corporate external and legal affairs and is also adjunct professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS), Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy. She holds a master’s degree for Soviet Studies from Harvard University and a doctorate degree in political science and government from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Based in Singapore, she has held leadership, consultancy, and research roles with organizations like the Bank of the Philippine Islands as director, US Institute for Peace, AIG Global Investment Group, Carnegie Corp. of New York, Council on Foreign Relations as senior research consultant where she assisted in peace negotiations between the MILF and the Philippine government, the World Bank, ASKI Global which is an NGO which trains and finances entrepreneurship among Asian women migrant laborers, among others. She was also formerly vice-dean for research and assistant dean at NUS.

Astrid was selected as among the top 100 Global Influencer by the Filipina Women’s Network of the US.

I met Astrid late last year in connection with her advocacy to make technology transform lives. Numerous articles have cited her humble beginnings as having fuelled her passion for diversity and inclusion.

She was born in a small village in Iloilo. Although raised in extreme poverty as the sixth of seven children, she received a scholarship at the age of five to attend a private school run by Catholic nuns, along with her siblings.

Allow me to quote a portion her story published in newsdeeply.com and news.microsoft.com.

“A pivotal event changed the arc of my life when I was five years old. Nuns from a Catholic order called the Daughters of Charity began talking with my mother and older sisters one day. The Daughters of Charity ran of the best convent schools in Iloilo City: the Colegio de Sagrada Corazon de Jesus. They had just established a free department for underprivileged children – and they asked my sisters and me to attend. They closed the free department a few years later, but five of us kept going and they didn’t charge us anything. What did that education mean for me? From being an illiterate child, ignorant, malnourished, and insecure, I became someone who learned to read, discovered numbers, and devoured everything.

“I was illiterate on the first day of school. In my school, the smartest child was put in the first seat, first row. The dumbest child was in the last seat, last row. But after a few months, I’m happy to report that I ended up sitting right in front – and I’m here where I am now all because of my access to education.

“Speaking personally, education really is the great equalizer. If you grow up underprivileged, education offers you the chance to discover an entire world. You might live in a village or under a bridge in Manila and know nothing about anything, but education can set your mind free. Any time you open up a mind, you’re opening up possibilities.”

She is an advocate for increased global access to education for women.

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