/ This study analyses Voice for Humanity's (VFH) Sada initiative to promote women's rights, citizen participation and civic education during the Afghan parliamentary elections in 2005. A qualitative assessment was conducted to gain an in-depth understanding of how Afghan women, in particular, utilized the Sada device. This research, positioned within current literature on information communication technology (ICT) and gender, views the Sada device — a solar-powered digital audio player (similar to an MP3 player) — as an ICT. Universally, women have unequal access to ICTs, yet the findings of this study suggest that projects such as this one in Afghanistan can play a powerful role in promoting women's rights. The findings reiterate that information dissemination, spurred by a suitable technology, can lead to family and community dialog. Such dialog, coupled with a more enabling environment for women's concerns, can contribute to women's empowerment and realization of women's human rights.

Ukrainian evangelical churches of all kinds are intimately connected with churches, people and religious ideas in other parts of the world. Because of the close relationship between Ukrainian Baptists and churches in the United States, and also because of the perceived ubiquitous nature of American culture worldwide, including in Ukraine, the idea of 'the West' is a strong one in Ukrainian church life. This article, based on research carried out in four Ukrainian Baptist churches over a ten-month period, examines how Ukrainian Baptists view 'the West'. During focus group discussions and individual interviews, Baptists portrayed the West as an object both of admiration and of distaste; as a place from which help had come for Ukraine, as well as a force that had caused problems in the Ukrainian church and in Ukraine more generally. It was described as a place of freedom, wealth, sin and opportunity; as a factor in intergenerational church conflicts; and as the place that entices church members to emigrate and abandon their home churches. Developed out of a larger study on the geographies of identity among Ukrainian Protestants, this article shows that the contemporary Ukrainian Baptist church is in part defined by a transformation from a relatively insular religious community into one that is open both to Ukrainian and western outsiders. To church members, this shift is to blame for a host of changes ushered in by transnational connections between their churches and churches in the West.Our brotherhood keeps a strict watch so that western liberalism won't get to our churches. The pastor sets certain limits: that young men shouldn't have long hair, chew gum; that girls shouldn't wear makeup, shouldn't wear trousers. They should keep the Christian rules that are written in the Bible.(Lidiya, Vinnytsa Baptist church)

Seminaries and divinity schools are significant components of a region's religious heritage and cultural landscape. While training ministerial professionals, they often proselytize among local residents and take moral positions on regional and global issues that are consistent with their theological stances. These "inside" and "outside" missions are integral elements of a seminary's worldview. In order to analyze the worldviews of 46 accredited theological seminaries and divinity schools in the American South, we examine their promotional materials in three ways: we study their use of visual images, their mission statements, and the global/intercultural content of their curricula. While evangelical seminaries share much in terms of mission statements and types of courses offered, this research shows that a number of schools, especially those serving Catholic, Hispanic, African American, and "mainline" groups, hold a diverse collection of worldviews. Christian theological schools in the contemporary South reflect strong elements of both an evangelical tradition and postmodern perspectives.