{"id":3144,"date":"2021-06-14T04:49:36","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T04:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.czbakery.com\/?p=3144"},"modified":"2021-06-14T08:57:06","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T08:57:06","slug":"about-che-zahara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.czbakery.com\/index.php\/about-che-zahara\/","title":{"rendered":"About Che Zahara"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Che Zahara binte Noor Mohamed<\/strong>\u00a0(nicknamed Che Zahara Kaum Ibu, 1907\u20131962) was a\u00a0Malay<\/a>\u00a0activist who worked towards women’s and children’s rights in\u00a0Singapore<\/a>. She was one of the first Malay women in Singapore to fight for modern women’s rights, according to\u00a0journalist<\/a>, Hajah Halizah Mohd Som. Che Zahara is the founder of the first\u00a0Muslim<\/a>\u00a0women’s welfare organization in Singapore, the Malay Women’s Welfare Association (MWWA).\u00a0Over the course of thirteen years, she “looked after over 300 women and orphans regardless of race or religion.”\u00a0She not only gave people a home, but also taught them religious knowledge and basic economic skills, such as\u00a0sewing<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Che Zahara was born into an “illustrious family in Singapore.”\u00a0Her father, Noor Mohamed, was an important man and one of the first Malay people to learn English, which he taught his daughter.\u00a0Her husband, Alal Mohamed Russull, was an advocate of\u00a0social welfare<\/a>\u00a0and justice. After\u00a0World War II<\/a>, she and her husband housed\u00a0orphans<\/a>\u00a0and women in need in their own home, which was located on Desker Road in the middle of the “red-light district<\/a>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Che Zahara founded MWWA in October 1947 and used the group to focus on issues surrounding marriage reform.\u00a0MWWA attracted eighty members, about fifty of which were teachers almost immediately after its founding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1948, she wrote four short plays to be performed as a protest against traditional Malay marriage customs, which included the ability of a man to\u00a0divorce<\/a>\u00a0his wife without legal inquiry. In addition, she fought for husbands to pay alimony to divorced wives until she remarried. Che Zahara also supported the Laycock Marriage Bill which created a minimum age for marriage in Singapore\u00a0Another initiative that Che Zahara supported was to encourage women to\u00a0give blood<\/a>\u00a0in order to help the Singapore Hospital meet demands for\u00a0blood transfusions<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the\u00a0Singapore Council of Women<\/a>\u00a0(SCW) was founded in 1952, Che Zahara had a “wider network and more resources available to the MWWA.”\u00a0In 1955, she represented Singapore at the\u00a0World Congress of Mothers<\/a>\u00a0which took place in\u00a0Switzerland<\/a>.\u00a0In 1961, Che Zahara, along with the SCW, helped establish the Women’s Charter of Singapore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Che Zahara was inducted into the\u00a0Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame<\/a>\u00a0in 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Che Zahara binte Noor Mohamed\u00a0(nicknamed Che Zahara Kaum Ibu, 1907\u20131962) was a\u00a0Malay\u00a0activist who worked towards women’s and children’s rights in\u00a0Singapore. She was one of the first Malay women in Singapore to fight for modern women’s rights, according to\u00a0journalist, Hajah Halizah Mohd Som. Che Zahara is the founder of the first\u00a0Muslim\u00a0women’s welfare organization in Singapore, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[86],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.czbakery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/FA1692CAA2D4FBAFE9C52AB38369E27F.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.czbakery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.czbakery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.czbakery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.czbakery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.czbakery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3144"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.czbakery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3149,"href":"https:\/\/www.czbakery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3144\/revisions\/3149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.czbakery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.czbakery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.czbakery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.czbakery.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}