When asked later about the question and the idea of pop culture “in the west”, she referred her mother in her response. [break]
“My mother says that in olden days, we used to have more culture and more religion. We used to look at Saints and Buddha. But now the western society has lost its value system,” Geri says after an eventful day-long tour around three villages in Kapilvastu on an UNFPA visit.
She adds how media and celebrities have become a new culture in the west now but should not be taken too seriously.
“It’s now the pop culture that people like to be associated with. You can’t take it too seriously, but at the same time can’t rule out as well,” Geri says who is known as the Ginger Spice amongst her fans.
Ingrained and now a part of western society’s pop culture is paparazzi who document what celebrities do and “people want to know.” For celebrities like her, its “annoying, sometimes.”
“On a sort of superficial way, celebrity thing is harmless and silly, really, and annoying at times. Media is powerful and on a positive way, it can do so much good. You can really make a difference.”
So was the 37-year old pop star in Nepal – to make a difference. A Good Will Ambassador of UNFPA for last one decade, Geri’s visit to Nepal was scheduled to highlight gender-based violence, maternal injuries like uterine prolapse and the discrimination and injustice the village-women face in their everyday life. UNFPA – United Nation Population Fund works on the areas of reproductive health, women’s empowerment and population and development strategies in Nepal.
The visit seemed to have made an impact on her, to some extent. She visited the impoverished villages of Kapilvastu where the literacy rate of women is less than 30 per cent and average age for marriage for a woman (girl in this context) at 14.5 years old.
There, she met with four girls who were intercepted being sold from border town in India. She also met up with the victims of domestic and sexual violence and with women who were suffering from uterine prolapse also known as fallen womb.
“For me coming here, it’s not for me to say that I know better than anybody else what is going on. But we can all learn from each other. We can compare,” says Geri who calls Nepal a beautiful fruit salad of different culture, religion and caste.
“I don’t claim to have the answers. But I can definitely tell the world about the issues of people here,”
She says what might work for one culture might not work for another. However, there is “a base line for humanity that decides what is acceptable and what is not in present day.”
Being with United Nations for a decade, she definitely has learnt a lot and one of the fundamental basics is the education of a woman. “I have learnt that if you educate women, the whole village will improve. Structurally, that will affect the economy and being of the society and country eventually,” she elucidates.
“Before anything, I ask myself why people are forced into situation such as being sold to India. And for me it goes beyond that, back to education. If the women are given opportunity to educate themselves that will give them the autonomy and empower economically.”
In Niglihawa, she met a woman who received just enough money from a cooperative, which the village women started to get a ride to reach a skilled birth attendant or else she would have died during the child birth along with the child.
“I did not know what to say back to her. What do you say to a woman for whom 2,000 rupees makes such huge difference,” the mother of a three-year old tells myrepublica.
“I was shocked. That has to be socially and morally unacceptable that a woman can die possibly giving birth to a new life.”
She uses the word matriarch with a strong nuance. In her opinion, mother leads the family and she says she got a glimpse of that in Nepali villages where she saw a mother gathering the food, cooking, looking after the kids and doing the fields as well as helping other neighbors.
“I should congratulate the women working on the grassroots level, helping each other out. Their stories are inspirational. I think a country can grow so much just by recognizing that,” she says and declares that the women have inspired her tremendously.
In her piece-to-camera footage for a documentary based on her visit to Nepal and talking to the Nepali women, she said, “Meeting these women puts me in a predicament and makes me realize how we in the western world are lucky to have all the privileges that we have.”
And later, in the interview, she opines saying one cannot take personal responsibility for changes but having United Nation’s presence and her presence brings “strong media attention and raises consciousness.”
She says that at times, it acts like a tipping point for change and shares her experience of Philippines and how the government there funded school education on sexual health and reproduction after her visit. In Nepal too, she launched the prime minister’s initiation of a national campaign to end violence against women by 2010.
Geri has tried her hands in writing as well, and quite successfully for that matter. She was the best-selling author of children’s books in 2008 for her Ugenia Lavender series from Macmillan Children’s Books. She says she wanted to find a character, in a fun way and she did. The book features adventure of nine-year old Ugenia, a character said to have been based on Halliwell.
“Ugenia is very alive, a bit naughty but nice and kind with morals. I wanted to create a girl character that was very human and would empower readers and inspire the little kids as they have fun,” says Geri for whom books, movies and music are for self-invigoration and empowerment.
“I have always loved reading and I find it very empowering in itself.”
Spice Girls, called the “female Beatles” by few, sold over thirty-five million copies of their studio albums Spice and Spiceworld. Geri quit her eminent pop girl band in 1998 and went solo with the release of her first album Schizophonic a year later.
Last year, with three albums under her belt, she announced that she was not going to do music anymore. “I love music and it will always be in my blood,” says the red-headed ex-Spice. “It’s always that itch that I say to myself oh, maybe! But the demands are huge once you put a record out.”
Because for this multi-tasking performer, she proclaims, she likes a bit of everything. “It feeds different parts of me and puts things into perspective.”
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