National • News & Public Affairs
WINGS: Women's International News Gathering Service is an all-woman independent radio production company that produces and distributes news and current affairs programs by and about women around the world.
WINGS is at different times horrifying, exciting, funny, eye-opening and definitely inspirational. — Nikki Reece, program producer, Plains FM, Christchurch, New Zealand
WINGS: Women’s International News Gathering Service is an all-woman independent radio production company that produces and distributes news and current affairs programs by and about women around the world. WINGS programs are used by non-commercial radio stations, women’s studies, and individuals. Programs can be heard on local radio stations, on shortwave, on the internet, and on cassettes. The WINGS Mailing List provides updates on stories and new information about women’s media. “Though I have been involved in women’s issues for years, I was still struck by the contrast of your broadcast to the news we are usually hearing — news reflecting male interests in a basically male world. Women’s affairs are a hidden current in the flow of world events.”– Kristin Reilly, listener, Buffalo, New YorkWINGS Mailing List:E-mail [email protected] to receive periodic e-mail updates about WINGS programs and women’s media issues.
March 22, 2025 National, News & Public Affairs
Land, Food, Water, Women (rebuilding complex relations to the land)
Emet Degirmenci is: a social ecologist; an independent researcher in women and ecology; a writer, speaker, teacher, and forager; a re-indigenizing and rewilding enthusiast; and, an ecological farm designer. Her home country is Turkey, but she has pursued her research and teaching in many parts of the world. She has found indigenous food practices are related around the world. She coaches farming methods that use all aspects of the land. Her best-known work in English is titled "A Critique of The Limits of Growth from a Social Ecology Perspective" (it can be found at academia.edu).
ListenMarch 15, 2025 National, News & Public Affairs
Wikipedia Women
Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight has been a Wikipedia editor since 2007 and an administrator since 2009. She has 100,000+ edits to her credit and has created more than 4,000 new articles. In 2015, she co-founded a volunteer project called Women in Red, to address gender bias in Wikipedia content. In 2021, she was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation (wikimediafoundation.org).
ListenMarch 8, 2025 National, News & Public Affairs
Sakti for Elders in Bangalore, India (community, sustenance, and a bit of joy)
The elderly are becoming a greater proportion of India's population, and many of them are women who had a lifetime of underemployment before becoming too frail to work, but still have overwhelming financial responsibilities. Jacintha Kumaraswamy (founder of Sakti), staff, a volunteer, and the elder women beneficiaries, tell how the project evolved as a community endeavor, what it provides, what its recipients face, how they are helped, and what else might be in its future.
Read MoreMarch 1, 2025 National, News & Public Affairs
Liberal Women Take to the Streets (Honoring Dr. King and Shocked by Trump)
In 2025, the birthday celebration of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., took place on the same day as Trump's inauguration. In Santa Cruz, California, an intensely liberal community, many people converged on the birthday march while still in a state of shock. Podcaster Suki Wessling, who volunteers with the local community radio, asked a wide range of women and girls "How are you feeling?" She compiled their answers in a series representing the strongly held values of their community and their contributions to its wellbeing.
Read MoreFebruary 22, 2025 National, News & Public Affairs
Bhopal Disaster (40 years of corporate impunity)
In 1984, a vast quantity of methyl isocyanate gas was released from a pesticide factory in a densely populated area; leading to death, disability, reproductive damage and genetic malformations for the populous. The corporate owners have gotten off nearly scot-free. Forty years later, the harms to both the public and the environment still mount, and the campaign for justice continues. This program's featured speaker is Suroopa Mukherjee, a scholar, author, and activist on behalf of the victims of what is still considered the worst industrial accident in history.
Read MoreFebruary 15, 2025 National, News & Public Affairs
Bell Hooks: Killing Rage – Black History Month in the Trump Era
Bell Hooks, renowned cultural critic and feminist theorist, gave the keynote address at the 12th annual conference of the Texas Council on Family Violence on October 13, 1993. She had just published her book, titled "Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery", and she was working on that book to be titled "Killing Rage: Ending Racism" (1995). Her talk, full of personal anecdotes, analyzes connections amongst racism, sexism, rage, and violence (both in media and in life). She states that we cannot stop violence without confronting the belief that violence is normal and "interrogating the violence in ourselves". This reprise of that talk includes a tribute added upon her death in 2021.
Read MoreFebruary 8, 2025 National, News & Public Affairs
Women’s Circus (Building Communities and Bodies at the Same Time)
The Women's Circus of Australia, founded in 1991, offers training with the aims of building physical self-confidence and community cooperation. This program begins with a discussion of the history of circuses and of women in circuses, and continues with interviews with a graduate of Australia's National Institute of Circus Arts and an instructor and performer in Australia's Women's Circus.
Read MoreFebruary 1, 2025 National, News & Public Affairs
WINGS: Peacebuilding in Kenya
The intense post-election violence of 2007 bankrupted Mary Oyier's new business. She and other women started talking with youths about their frustrations, then bringing together organizations and civil society networks with government to start addressing the problems among ethnic groups. They built a national network including both religious and civil society groups, and adopted Cobo technology to communicate clearly with government. Oyier says that networking - including between countries, and especially among women - is important for getting new ideas and that it's essential for peace
Read MoreJanuary 25, 2025 National, News & Public Affairs
WINGS: Syrians Hoping (part 2 of 2)
Afra Jalabi and Mohja Kahf, based at universities respectively in Canada and the US, are very involved with their home country Syria. They engage in heated discussion about the complex situation on the ground there, about international interference, and about their hopes and fears over whether the next step will be a democracy including all the country's cultures, or an Islamist dictatorship that oppresses women.
Read MoreJanuary 18, 2025 National, News & Public Affairs
WINGS: Syria Rising (part 1 of 2)
Just days after the dictator Assad fled for Russia, the two of them joined interviewer Kate Raphael (then in Palestine) via Zoom to talk about the complex events, and the history of resistance, especially by women. Program includes sounds of women celebrating, and of women being released from prison. Next week in Part 2 they discuss their hopes and fears about what is next for Syria.
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