We would love to hear your comments on the blog, issues you would like to discuss in the future and suggestions for improving it. After this, there will be a short break in posting until early January.

Until then, the IFUW Board of Officers and staff wish you all a peaceful New Year!

According to Marianne, “we are now in a ‘make or break’ situation for women’s organizations. The old model is becoming less and less effective. We have to change”.

IFUW needs to build a much stronger identity as an international organization. The UN and the agencies that work in IFUW priority areas should all know what IFUW is and include IFUW at the table.

There is also a need for closer relationship between IFUW and the National Federation and Associations (NFAs). NFAs should feel the value and importance of being a member of IFUW due to the programme, projects and services IFUW is offering. It is also important to find ways to recruit new NFAs and to help NFAs in developing countries to remain members.

The most difficult challenge will be finding new ways of funding activities. This could be done through development of relevant IFUW projects and programmes.

Marianne also responded to a question on how to make IFUW more ‘intergenerational’. To get different generations involved, IFUW and the NFAs have to be doing things that are likely to interest each of them, offering a broad range of activities.

“When I look back in three years time I want to be able to see what has been achieved during my Presidency, for example: How many of our NFAs have increased their membership? How many new NFAs do we have? How much funding have we raised from sources other than dues? What programme activities have we carried out? How have we used our consultative relationships with the UN system? How have we improved our image so that women know what IFUW stands for. …I intend to set the bar high, as I see this as a ‘one shot deal’ and 36 months is a very short time.”

To read the full interview by Michelle Imison, click here. (To read another interview by Anne Gerdink, click here).

If you have ideas, suggestion or questions on how to achieve the goals above, please leave a comment.

Winners of the 2010 Irish FUW Public Speaking Competition for girls aged under 15

Next year, the Women’s World 2011 (WW 2011) will bring together women from around the globe with the theme “Inclusions, exclusions, and seclusion: Living in a globalized world”.

One of the conference days will examine how women’s grassroots groups and academics can stay resilient in today’s globalized world and how new fundraising strategies, new research, new methods of organizing, and new communications tools can help create the change women want.

UNESCO’s six year programme on Women, Higher Education and Development (1996-2002) highlighted the need for stronger links between academia and grassroots activities. Initiatives varied from students showing how many of the things we do every day are basic science, to initiating literary programmes that addressed local populations, and taking up environmental and hygiene questions in cartoon form with ‘local ’English. These helped to debunk myths and provide facts.

There are some good examples within IFUW as well. The Irish Federation of University Women holds annually a Public Speaking Competition for girls which offers them the opportunity to gain self-confidence by developing public speaking skills (see photo above). The Samoa Association of Women Graduates distributes dictionaries to secondary school girls as end of year prizes for the Best All Round Female Students.

What more can IFUW and NFAs do at this level to strengthen the link between academia and grassroots both in developed and developing countries?

Prof. Anne Holden Rønning, Secretary of the Norwegian Federation

President Marianne Haslegrave (Great Britain) sees change as a train that IFUW cannot afford to miss. She has embarked on her task as IFUW President with a big suitcase of energy and ideas to help secure the future success of IFUW. Marianne’s background working with international organizations on women’s health and with other international bodies such as the Commonwealth Secretariat, has given her the necessary experience to drive the train.

Treasurer Catherine Bell (South Africa) is a manager of training projects for large corporations. In her second triennium as Treasurer, she plans to look for project funding within the wider community. Her particular expertise is strategic thinking and design of cost-effective and sustainable projects.

Vice Presidents: Patricia Galeana Herrera (Mexico) is a historian, researcher and professor. She was the Founding President of the Mexican Federation of University Women (FEMU). As IFUW Vice President, Patricia would like to encourage new projects especially in those countries where the rights of women are lagging behind.

Anne Nègre (France) is a lawyer specialized in labour law and rights of non-profit organisations. She also teaches law. She has been lobbying for many years for CEDAW and is as a strong supporter of human rights. During her time as IFUW Vice President, Anne would like to see more NFAs becoming involved with CEDAW.

Jennifer Strauss (Australia), an Honorary Senior Research Fellow, draws on the skills and experiences gained from an academic career in literary studies. As a member of the IFUW Status of Women Committee for two trienniums, Jennifer has broad familiarity of NFAs and their concerns. She would like to see general principles, such as access to education, personal career advancement and  financial security, translated into relevant policies and actions.

Willemijn van der  Meer (The Netherlands) Willemijn works as a project manager of change processes in finance, ICT and logistics. She hopes to apply the knowledge acquired in her professional career to her role as IFUW Vice President. Willemijn would like to work on strategies to increase the number of younger members. She also would like the see how the Board can give more support to NFAs and regions.

The new Board’s priorities are to increase IFUW’s visibility, to improve the effectiveness of IFUW’s advocacy and to promote member involvement. They would therefore like to receive your feedback and comments on any topic related to IFUW. They are also available to answer questions posted on this blog post.

As starting point, the IFUW Membership Committee would like to hear about your own experiences and to know what you think might attract other women graduates from your community to join IFUW today.

When sharing your experience you may wish to address one or more of the following questions:

• When did you join and how did you hear about the organization? What strategies and media do you think would work best to attract new members in your community?

• Why did you decide to become and remain a member? What are the activities that you find most attractive?

• What do you think women graduates today expect from an organization like IFUW and what kinds of services and activities should we be offering at the international and national level to make our organization more attractive to women graduates of different age groups?

• What future would you like to see for IFUW ten years from now? What do you think we need to do in order to attain it?

• Are there any NGOs which you think have gained high visibility? What strategies and media did they use?

We think the 30^th Triennial Conference is going to be a unique event.

But, what do YOU think? On this week’s blog, we would like to hear your thoughts. If you have attended many conferences, what keeps you coming back? If you registered for the first time, what are your expectations?

We look forward to receiving your comments and to seeing you in Mexico City!

Apart from the economic and social benefits to the state and community-building, individual benefits seem to be an important aspect of volunteering. On Wikipedia one can read: “volunteering is generally considered an altruistic activity, intended to improve human quality of life, …but people also volunteer for their own skill development, …to meet others …and to have fun”.

What do volunteers look for today? What kind of organizations and activities interest them? Are the individual benefits of volunteering becoming more important? Does IFUW need to change to better meet the needs of the new volunteers?

IFUW Board and Staff would like to wish all readers a peaceful 2010.

During the next three weeks the blog will take a break. In the meanwhile, we would like to give you the opportunity to suggest future blog topics. Please write to us and share the topics  that are “close to your heart” .

We will be back with a new blog post on13 January 2010.

Created on Worldnet.com

The coming two weeks we would like to give you the opportunity to suggest future blog topics. We are open to all ideas that are “close to the heart” of our members. We hope to hear from many of you.

On 19th August we will blog on the distribution of men and women in parliament worldwide and the outcomes of the 2009 European Elections.

]]> http://www.ifuw-forums.org/blog/2009/08/05/ideas-for-future-blogs/feed/ 2 http://www.ifuw-forums.org/blog/2008/11/10/welcome-to-the-new-ifuw-website/ http://www.ifuw-forums.org/blog/2008/11/10/welcome-to-the-new-ifuw-website/#comments Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:00:47 +0000 Anamaria Vere, IFUW Staff http://www.ifuw-forums.org/blog/?p=3 Continue reading →]]> Welcome to the new IFUW Blog, which we present to you as part of IFUW’s redesigned website. We have been hard at work on the website and are excited to finally be able to share it with you.

The structure of the new version of the website allows you to quickly access the latest news, updates and official communications.  Important programme information is just one click away. We have also tried to make the site more interactive and we encourage members to share their views here on the IFUW Blog or on the IFUW Bulletin Board.

We hope that the website redesign has brought a fresh, more modern look to IFUW’s online presence and that it will make this tool even more useful to you.  To help us keep the website up-to-date, we invite you to send news and photos of your activities with us so that we can add them to the website.

For now, take a look around and then come back here and leave a comment telling us what you think. We look forward to hearing your feedback!