It’s hard to imagine in the western world, but in Nigeria, girls as young as ten are married and four out of every ten girls are married before the age of eighteen, eight out of ten in the northern region. When a girl is forced into marriage, sometimes to a man old enough to be her grandfather, she often cannot continue her education unless her husband allows it, she is likely to live her life illiterate, and she faces a higher risk of death from childbirth due to being neither physically or emotionally ready.

In this episode, we speak with Habiba Mohammed and Maryam Albashir, the co-director and deputy director respectively of the Centre for Girls’ Education in Nigeria. These women have dedicated their lives to helping girls through educational programs, safe spaces, Gender-based violence prevention, vocational and leadership training and other mentorship programs through the Centre which has helped thousands of girls since it opened in 2007.

Until this interview, we did not understand just how far reaching the issue of child marriage was in the Sahel region of Africa, and we were blown away by the incredible impact these women have had in improving the lives of so many girls.

We believe that if we want to see more peace in this world, it starts with empowering the girls and women and Habiba and Maryam are showing all of us how.

You can learn more about or make a donation to the Centre for Girls Education HERE.

2.08: Marital Age in Northern Nigeria
7.23 Education of Habiba Mohammed
8.17 “My mother, she always tells me that the schooling is not for anybody but for me. So I should understand that I am not doing anybody a favor by going to school. I am doing myself. So I need to know that I want to change my life, I will be who I want to be, if I go to school. It can influence the husband that I marry, it can influence the friends that I have, and it will influence the way I want to live my life.” Habiba Mohammed
9.24 Maryam Albashir´s Story

12.20 A Mother to All

13.00 Arranged and non arranged marriages
15.00 Going to the communities
16.31 “At the safe spaces we encourage the girls to go back home and discuss what they are learning in the safe spaces to their mothers and their aunties and their other siblings. So this helped us to get very acceptance in the communities.” Habiba Mohammed
16.57 Number of girls they have helped educate
20.00 Things the girls learn at the safe spaces

20.30 “What we do at the safe spaces is also to empower her, for her to know her self worth, for her to be able to identify what she wants to become in life. Some of these girls, depending on the category of project that we enroll them into, we empower them with vocational skills. So along the line, if they start earning an income it gives them an upperhand in their homes, it gives them a voice to say who they want to be or what they want to become in life.” Maryam Albashir
23.00 1st story of success, story of Sakina
27.30 Favorite part of their job
29.50 Their message to the world
“Every girl, wherever she is, needs an education. And she needs to be empowered and she needs to be who she wants to be in life. So if we are educated and we are given that opportunity the sky is not our limit, the sky will be our starting point.” Habiba Mohammed

With all eyes on the conflict in Isreal, Lebanon and Gaza, it can be easy to sink into despair witnessing the endless stream of news stories of violence and devastation. However, there are some who are like lights in the darkness, spreading peace and love at the center of the strife.

We are so honored to have one of those people on our podcast, Nechama Shaina, an expressive arts therapist originally from the Chabad community in the Bay Area of California who currently resides in Israel with her two teenage children. She has a background in clinical psychology and uses dance, drama and visual arts in her therapy. She has been playing an active role in healing those who have been so horribly affected by the current conflict there including giving hands-on treatments for the Kibbutz Be’eri survivors of the October 7th attack where Hamas-led terrorists killed 101 people in that kibbutz alone. She also organizes healing retreats for the grieving Druze women who lost their children during the Hezbollah attack on the soccer field in Majdal Shams this past summer.

Speaking with Nechama, we were in tears listening to how she brings her life journey of creativity, her passion for the sacred feminine and her deep knowledge of the Jewish tradition to anyone who has need allowing those she treats the space to heal on the level of mind, body, heart and soul.

She is a true pioneer, and her diverse background puts her in the unique position to be of great service at this particular time in Israel’s history. We feel like we got a glimpse into what it is really like to be there now at the center of the conflict, and surprisingly, miraculously, it was a glimpse of hope.

Meditation Without Borders is currently raising funds to go to Isreal in 2025 in collaboration with Nechama Shaina to teach Vedic meditation to the women and mothers in Isreal of various backgrounds who are most effected by the current conflict. If you would like to contribute to this effort, please consider donating HERE.

Show Notes:

.30 Intro to Nechama

2.00 Nechama´s current work
3.19 Druze Community

6.18 “Once you connect to the people that have been at the edge of life and death there is something very sacred there.” Nechama

7.53 Nechama means comfort
9.25 “He said I want to continue learning Arabic cause I want to learn how to speak to the Palestinian people and not fight with weapons.” Israeli Soldier
14.00 Nechama´s story in her own words
14.20 “My Mom and Dad raised me with one of the many many foundations of the belief system that we are being breathed into existence every moment by the divine. It's not the divine that created us and this universe and just took a walk. That we are being intended or dreamed into this planet.” Nechama

15.00 The Hasidic Community
16.30 The Role of Women in Judaism
18.28 Being a Scribe and the Ketubah

22.00 Inspiration for Ketubah Piece

25.52 Collective Consciousness of Israel right now
29.30 Methods of Healing

33.50 Priestess and Weavers
35.00 The Feminine in Judaism

37.49 “Our words are so powerful right? Our words create reality. Our thoughts create reality. How much more so do our words create reality when we bring in the divine feminine in our prayers, in our words. So we are bringing her in reality, in our presence, in our consciousness.” Nechama
38.38 The Feminine Rising as Controversial in Different Traditions

40.46 Different therapies and Body work therapy for working with communities in Israel

43.00 Breathing Techniques

50.27 Pilgrimage Dream
52.07 “I felt like this dream was about opening the gates of prayer for each other. Like we are opening those gates together and praying in different languages. And that's actually what I did back in the year 2000. There was a whole group of Christians, Muslims and Jews, Israelis that came together overlooking the temple mount and the mosque and the western wall. and right in between the Jewish and Muslim quarter in the old city and we would come together, pray in different languages, talk, sing.” Nechama

52.27 “I've had this strange opportunity and it's weird to say it's an opportunity to be here in this country for really challenging times. And opportunities for a lot of growth and healing.” Nechama

Recorded October 2024

While it seems like the patriarchy is at its peak and brutality is rampant around the world, it can feel like we’re all tumbling towards darkness. However, when we take a wider view, we see that there is a larger movement at play, and there is hope of a phoenix rising from the destruction–the rising of the Feminine.

In this episode, Isabel and Kristen discuss the nature of the Feminine as infinite organizing power and how to spot its promising emergence on the world stage and in our own lives. We hope our conversation can help ease some of the anxiety around what is going on in the collective and inspire mobilization for positive change.

Show notes:

2.00 The Safe space between Women

4.20 Tide Shift of the Feminine no longer receding

7.00 The New Role

8.00 Kali Yuga

9.00 The Receding of the Feminine

12.00 The Women in Rwanda
13.00 “The feminine has in it this quality in which it sees everybody as equal.If you imagine a mother, all her children are equal to her. And so there is something about that forgiveness and that seeing everyone as the same that is required when there is such extreme division in order to come out of it.” Kristen Vandivier.

18.00 Honoring our bodies

21.00 The Role of the Masculine Rising

27.00 “How does the feminine fight? The feminine makes her enemies her devotees. Its an incorporation” Kristen Vandivier

30.00 Feminine Empowered

38.00 Setting Boundaries and Kali Mode

45.00 Betrayal

49.00 Inclusivity
53.00 Women Are Never Losers