Underprivileged as well as elderly women incapable of earning a living are entitled to SWOÕs social support.

State Welfare Organization has not yet been provided with the pledged 200-billion-rial budget to increase monthly allowances for women-led households. As reported by IRNA, SWO chief explained that the Majlis enactment on the budget which had been submitted to the Council of Guardians for final endorsement was returned by the councilors to the parliament for amendment.
Abolhassan Faqih went on, “As per the Fourth Plan Law, the allowance paid to women heading households should be equal to 40 percent of the minimum monthly salary of government employees. However, the credits for that raise have not been secured yet.“
The parliamentarians had endorsed a total one trillion rials, of which 800 billion would be earmarked for the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee and the rest for the SWO.
“Even once the total credit is allocated, it will not suffice rising the allowance to that 40-percent ceiling. But it will be doled out among the 147,000 women-headed households to help partially boost their revenues,“ he noted.
Meanwhile, deputy head of Tehran Welfare Department for social affairs vowed that the poorly-supported families and women-led households in Tehran would be brought under the umbrella of the State Welfare Organization.
Zohreh Saffarifar told IRNA that underprivileged women as well as the elderly incapable of earning a living are entitled to social support services offered by SWO after registering.
The official elaborated that disadvantaged households headed by women 50 years old and above would be covered by the organization’s services provided they are considered as eligible by SWO’s social workers.
“Such families should not be receiving pensions or disability allowances from any other organization or as per other supportive laws,“ Saffarifar stressed.
The official stated that to qualify for SWO protection, the households should hold Iranian nationalities and have monthly revenues of less than two-thirds of the minimum amount fixed by the State Employment Law.
The support services will be extended to boys until 18 years of age and girls until the time of marriage, she concluded.

Born in 1932 to middle class parents in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, US, Sylvia Plath published her first poem when she was eight. Sensitive, intelligent, compelled toward perfection in everything she attempted, she was, on the surface, a model daughter, popular in school, earning straight A’s, winning the best prizes. By the time she entered Smith College on a scholarship in 1950, she already had an impressive list of publications, and while at Smith she wrote over 400 poems.
Sylvia’s surface perfection was however underlain by grave personal discontinuities, some of which doubtless had their origin in the death of her father when she was eight. During the summer following her junior year at Smith, having returned from a stay in New York City where she had been a student “guest editor“ at Mademoiselle Magazine, Sylvia nearly succeeded in killing herself by swallowing sleeping pills. She later described this experience in an autobiographical novel, “The Bell Jar,“ published in 1963. After a period of recovery involving electroshock and psychotherapy Sylvia resumed her pursuit of academic and literary success, graduating from Smith summa cum laude in 1955 and winning a Fulbright scholarship to study at Cambridge, England.
In 1956, she married the English poet Ted Hughes, and in 1960, when she was 28, her first book, “The Colossus,“ was published in England. The poems in this book--formally precise, well wrought--show clearly the dedication with which Sylvia had served her apprenticeship; yet they give only glimpses of what was to come in the poems she would begin writing early in 1961. She and Ted Hughes settled for a while in an English country village in Devon, but less than two years after the birth of their first child the marriage broke apart.
The winter of 1962-63, one of the coldest in centuries, found Sylvia living in a small London flat, now with two children, ill with flu and low on money. The hardness of her life seemed to increase her need to write, and she often worked between four and eight in the morning, before the children woke, sometimes finishing a poem a day. In these last poems it is as if some deeper, powerful self has grabbed control; death is given a cruel physical allure and psychic pain becomes almost tactile.
On February 11, 1963, Sylvia Plath killed herself with cooking gas at the age of 30. Two years later Ariel, a collection of some of her last poems, was published; this was followed by Crossing the Water and Winter Trees in 1971, and, in 1981, The Collected Poems appeared, edited by Ted Hughes.

Center for Women and Family Affairs has been assigned by the government to enforce the Comprehensive Plan to Promote Women and Family Affairs, the center’s chief stated.
“The center has worked out the comprehensive scheme in line with a government order and the stipulation of the Fourth Five-Year Development Plan (2005-2010),“ Nasrin Soltankhah said.
The official was quoted by IRNA as saying at a meeting with women lawmakers that the center is jointly working with related executive bodies on documents.
The executive policies are to be implemented within the framework of 14 national plans including reinforcement of family foundations; amendment of administrative structures in women’s affairs; improvement of social security system, operationalization of a comprehensive legal system, and enhancement of women’s physical, mental and social health.
Soltankhah, who is also a presidential advisor, said all-inclusive plans are underway for empowerment of NGOs, development of women’s economic affairs, prevention of violence, expansion of female-oriented researches as well as enrichment of leisure time.
The official further said that the center has set up six committees to help achieve objectives stipulated in the Fourth Plan.
Highlighting the role women legislators play in policymaking, she called on the parliamentarians to join the committees.
Head of the center observed, “Female lawmakers’ membership in the committees would enable them to make effective decisions in promoting women’s status.“
On a 36-percent rise in 2006-07 budget of the center, Soltankhah said that the amount would be shared by related organizations to be spent on raising women’s capabilities as well as bolstering family foundations.
The budget would also help activate offices for women’s affairs in state entities, she expanded.

More women will serve in the capacity of judges once a proposal which binds the presence of female judges in family courts gets the final seal of approval from the parliamentarians.
A member of the Majlis Women Faction predicted that the number of female judges would rise should the initiative be ratified.
Nafiseh Fayyazbakhsh was quoted by Fars news agency as saying that the plan was unanimously approved by the deputies in its first reading.
She expanded that the current law provides no guarantee that the family courts benefit from the services of women judges.
“The situation is worse in other cities where female legal experts are even stripped of the right to work as legal counselor,“ the lawmaker regretted.
“The judiciary has employed a great number of women judges in recent years. The Minister of Justice has also put the number of female judges in Tehran at 400. Still, they do not get job assignments and the family courts are deprived of their services,“ Fayyazbakhsh stated.
Women’s judgments will have to be included in verdicts of family courts as envisaged in the proposal, she noted.
According to the lawmaker, should the man and woman judges at the court have divergent views, the woman’s ruling should be inscribed under the verdict to be considered in the appeal court.
Fayyazbakhsh expanded that one out of the three judges at the appeal court is a woman.
The Majlis deputy said that the new plan, once ratified, would be helpful to women who are embarrassed by having to confide in a male judge.
She is of the opinion that the presence of women judges would help the issuance of fairer verdicts.

Charitable women help meet a portion of the nationÕs need for school.

There are close to 2,000 women benefactors who fund school construction projects across the country, advisor to chief of the Schools Renovation, Development and Mobilization said.
Khadijeh Neyzari added that each of these charitable ladies has helped construct at least one school.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Second Conference of School Construction Women Benefactors in Golestan province, she told IRNA, “Some of them have built as many as 30 schools.“
About 35 percent of all school building projects across the country are funded by benevolent individuals, 15 percent of them by women, she mentioned.
Neyzari put the number of women contributors to school construction projects at a total 10,000. “About 43 Iranian women residing abroad have sponsored construction of schools in their homeland,“ she noted.
Neyzari praised the many capabilities of women as half of the Iranian society and said they can be pioneers in many arenas.

Most breast lumps are discovered by women themselves. Although the majority of lumps are non-cancerous, early detection saves lives. Pre-menopausal women should examine their breasts the week following menstruation each month when the breasts are the least swollen and tender. Women who no longer menstruate can pick one day of each month for self-examination.
Step 1. While standing in front of a mirror, with your hands on your hips, visually examine your breasts. Look for lumps, changes in size, color, shape or contour. Look for dimples or puckering. Are your nipples normally inverted? If not, look to see if they are pushed in.
Step 2. Repeat this portion of the examination with your hands behind your head.
Step 3. Next, press each nipple, checking for discharge.
Step 4. Lie down with a pillow under your left shoulder and place your left hand under your head. With the fingers of your right hand flattened and together, press the top portion of the left breast. Using circular motions, feel for lumps and thickening. In other words, think of your breast as the face of a clock. With the top of the breast as 12 o’clock, move around the outer portion of the breast clockwise. Once you have returned to 12, move the fingers closer to the nipple and repeat. Seventy-five percent of breast cancer occurs under the nipple-areola region or in the upper, outer portion of the breast near the armpit, so make sure you thoroughly examine these areas.
Step 5. Once you have checked the entire surface of the left breast, move the pillow and examine the right breast with the left hand.
Step 6. Using the same small, circular motions examine the area adjacent to your breast in the armpit. This area also contains breast tissue. (Note: A breast self-exam can also be performed during a shower or bath.)
Step 7. If you detect thickening or a lump, contact your doctor immediately. Most lumps are benign, but only a doctor can determine that for sure.
By performing a breast self-exam every month, you will become familiar with how your breasts normally look and feel. This will help make abnormalities easier to detect.

Clad in traditional Turkmen clothes, women look at Qabous Tower in Gonbad-e Kavoos, Golestan province. (IRNA Photo)