Greetings from Amilcar Calbral!
Thanks for that mail; I totally believe that together we can do it.
Right now, I am in the heart of Bissau, capital city of Guinea Bissau, the country that has just come out of war. Among the many things I will be assessing in this war ravaged country is the level of women’s engagement in political, economic and cultural life.

Through the help of my friend, a member of parliament at whose invitation I am here, I have had the opportunity to visit the Vice President of the Guinea parliament who is a female, and the president of the Guinea Bissau Women's Federation. Since my arrival here on Sunday night, from what I have seen though, it is still too early to come to a conclusion. The level of women's participation is somehow encouraging, but yet political maturity is highly needed.

I do hope to introduce the iKNOW Politics site to these women.

I will keep you all updated, together we can do it right.

Edwin Nebolisa
Amilcar Calbral

I am of the view that confict resolution should be included to allow those with little knowledge of politics to learn and understand how to deal with conficts always present while interacting with people

How can we get help on this matter?

Do we just need more women in power and in elected office, or do we need a few excellent women in power and in elected office? Which is the better strategy for increasing the number and quality of women in politics in the long-term? The ideal would certainly be both: that there be many more women in office, all of whom are excellent. But the dichotomy does exist. Incompetent men are regularly supported by their political parties, but there is a great outcry when a party supports a woman who is less than perfect. That said, in order for women to prove themselves in office (and this is very much still the case) they must be excellent. Unfortunately, we are still so much in the nascent phase of women's political activism that each woman in office is still judged extremely harshly, as if people are determining whether women should be in politics based on the performance of each woman elected official. This is obviously not fair; noone is using the presence of incompetent men in politics to argue men should not be involved in politics. But it is still a reality. This debate is quite prevalent in women in politics discussions these days, but I have not heard a good answer. For me, I think increasing the number of women in politics overall creates a broader pool of women politicians who will gain experience and eventually excel, or in the very least train the next generation of women to excel. I believe that women are not by nature better leaders or politicians, nor that men are by nature better leaders or politicians. But I do believe that women bring a voice and a perspective to politics that men can never bring. And for that reason, as well, do I feel we need more women's voices at the table.
Piper Stege Nelson