Water Watch Penang’s Gender & Water Intern in South Africa September 2010
Cap-Net’s gender strategy, monitoring and evaluation of gender mainstreaming in our (CapNet’s) activities and broadening engagement with organisations who have both a gender and water focus”.
We welcome Lai Wan Teng who landed in Pretoria a few days ago on attachment from MyCBNet (Malaysia Capacity Building Network). Her mission for the next 3 months includes developing and implementing an action plan for rolling out Cap-Net’s gender strategy, monitoring and evaluation of gender mainstreaming in our activities and broadening engagement with organisations who have both a gender and water focus. She will also enhance her network’s gender focus and plan for short courses, research and regional seminars that she will lead after returning home to Pulau Pinang, Malaysia. Wan Teng has a Master of Science degree in Gender and Development Studies from the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand. She says she became acutely aware of the different values placed on the sexes at the tender age of 9 years, upon hearing of plans by relatives to give up a little girl so they could afford to keep their boy child. Since graduating she has worked for some NGOs and advocacy groups and is now a Lecturer at the Women’s Development Research Centre at the Universiti Sains Malaysia. Wan Teng is fluent in Malay, Mandarin, English and Cantonese and has in the past used her language abilities to manage gender advocacy activities in different languages. She hopes that her work will contribute to more women participating in decision making on how water is managed. Wan Teng can be contacted at wanteng.lai@cap-net.org