30th IFUW Triennial Conference

Sunday started with Nicole acting as a vote counter at Business Session 3. The business session covered the internal resolutions proposed to the IFUW conference. A number of resulutions were proposed from a variety of countries. For example, WG-USA proposed that NFAs educate their members on the issue of human trafficking in Resolution 5: Human Trafficking Violates Human Rights. The resultion passed. Other resulutions listed on the IFUW website and final wording will be posted after the conference. The sessions was very interesting especially in observing the specific procedures that were followed in running the meeting and debate. Additionally, hearing the discussions from the NFAs who had proposed resolutions was exciting in that one could hear the sincere interest and passion by those who had researched and put together the the resolutions.

And Kathleen attended the Parallell Workshop: Change is the Only Constant, regarding tools for designing and managing projects – project phases, team roles, leadership, budgeting, time management and evaluation. She participated in a small group of Mexican, Netherlands, and others. The powerpoint is to be put on the IFUW website for access of NFAs. Very good, very interesting and interactive, but 2 hours should really be 4 hours.

In the afternoon, we attended the Plenary Session 2 on the IFUW four teams of representatives to the United Nations and UNESCO. Very informative and full reports are on the IFUW website under ‘What We Do’, http://www.ifuw.org/advocacy/index.shtml. We also attended Plenary Session 3 discussing the next Programme for Action for IFUW 2010-2013. Further consultation within the new Status of Women Committee will finalise the Programme and distribute to NFAs, post on the website and encourage groups and individuals to act to these priorities.

In the evening, we were invited to join Jennifer Strauss, Australia and new IFUW Vice-President, and Alba Romano, Argentina, for a ‘self-guided’ tour and dinner in central Mexico City. What a great time together!

Kathleen (Kathy) Mumford, AFUW WA CIR
Nicole Nelson, WG-USA Young Member

Parallel to the debate and voting on resolutions and constitutional amendments, we had the chance to listen to two excellent presentations concerning new media in non-profit organizations.

The use of internet, email and several other online tools is vital to the sustain of these organizations. However, just using it is not enough. It has to be effective, well structured, easily available and have a clear goal.

Campaigning or brainstorming can get a lot of support via online tools as Rosetta Adera, Rwanda, showed us in her report. Using a newsgroup thread, they received responses from 10 different countries from all over the world, giving ideas on how to provide menstruation pads to girls.

In Rwanda, they often drop out from school after having missed several days every month of school due to their menstruation. The newsgroup comments also gave ideas on how to bring this problem to society.

The second presentation from Louise McLeod, USA, showed us how, a mainly virtual organization like WG-USA, can successfully communicate among their members. They also expect to attract young graduates and university women to their organization through their on-line presence.

Helga Voraberger-Hössinger

All today’s sessions were grouped around two general themes: ‘Education for Sustainable Development’ and ‘Towards a Just Society’. This morning I attended the former sessions, which opened with a general panel of four speakers. Each of them addressed some aspect of this general topic: Louise Croot (New Zealand) raised water as a cross-cutting issue with gender, cultural and economic aspects, Heike Mensch (Germany) discussed the various elements of sustainable education with particular reference to the German system, Maria José Cárdona (Mexico) talked about the antecedents to climate change education and the work of various UN agencies and Josephine Alumanah (Nigeria) spoke of the specific (and more serious) effects on women in Nigeria of environmental issues.

After morning tea, the interdisciplinary seminars took this general theme into more specific areas. Yasemin Alptekin (Turkey) discussed education for sustainable development in relation to four areas of learning raised by the Delon report (1997): learning to know, to do, to live together and to be. Kalyani Bondre (India) could not attend, so her paper about curriculum design for the development of sustainable agriculture in India was read in her absence: it touched on how the inclusion of organic principles in rural education would lead to sustainable agriculture.

I must admit that I wasn’t in the room for Effiness Mpakati Gama’s (Scotland) paper on energy conservation in poor areas of Malawi – the pace of this conference is taking its toll, and I went out briefly for a coffee so I’d get through the morning! – but I returned just in time to hear a presentation by Heidi Mardon (New Zealand) about the ‘Enviroschool’ concept and Foundation, which now works in about a quarter of the country’s schools and in several locations overseas; it aims to empower students through a whole-school approach to both environmental and social issues. Finally, María Leticia Verdugo (Mexico) spoke about universities’ social responsibility beyond just teaching students: it extends to imparting values, not just knowledge.

This afternoon there are workshops, and I might blog later about the one I’m attending (on women as individuals, and through their NFAs, making ‘eco-friendly’ changes in their lives). It’s a busy day, though – we have a Mexican cultural evening later tonight for all participants – and a full programme of activities before then!

Michelle Imison

Day 2 of the seminars and workshops saw us attending Theme 4: Towards a Just Society, the Virginia Gildersleeve International Fund Lunch and the Mexican Evening, as well as Kathleen attending a second meeting of the facilitators for the Sunday Plenary by the Status of Women Committee for the next triennium Programme for Action themes.

The Theme 4 Opening Session was addressed by Eileen Fegan, Ireland and specialist in Gender, Legal and Women’s Human Right Education, who spoke on the need for women – all women – to understand human rights as they explored their role in society. Nicole attended the interdisciplinary seminars on the topic of Women’s Human Rights: Key to Gender Equality, while Kathleen attended the session in Spanish, utilizing head phones translating into English, on Women, Rights and Democracy. In all these sessions, the key to human rights is knowing what these are, knowing your own country’s legislation and practices, the need for significantly more education and awareness of human rights and advocating for women and children’s rights. In Kathleen’s session, Blanca Ruiz, introduced as the female candidate without expectation of being voted mayor of Puebla – 4 largest city in Mexico, however, her success and leadership in two and a half years has created literacy programs and employment programs for women in extreme poverty and she is currently working to enable expansion and continuation of these program after her term of office. The other papers presented explored the affect of neo liberal philosophy and developing world economic politics as a result of developed world politics on Latin American economies. Nicole attended a seminar entitled “Women’s Human Rights: A Key to Gender Equality”. The session focused on a variety of violent actions against women in different African region. It was emphasized that although some laws exist to protect women they are seldom followed. The culture and traditions of the society have existed for so long that violence against women continues. The importance of advocation and education are key in achieving gender equality.

In the afternoon Kathleen and Nicole held a workshop entitled “Academic English for Refugee/Immigrant Women”. The session began with identifying the barriors that women and girls face in education when they move to a second country. Areas focused on included language and cultural issues, hurdles within the family unit, and structual hinderances in the educational institution. Kathleen and Nicole then highlighted strengths that immigrant girls and refugee women have that are often ignored, but are in fact important qualtites that need to be embraced. Strategies on how to provide academic English were then discussed in the context of Minnesota International Middle School, a public charter school located in the United States (MN). The framework for Academic English success focused on four areas, environment, collaboration, professional development, and going beyond the classroom. Nicole discussed the importance of parent and community involvement and visibility in the school and the SIOP (Structured Instruction Observation Protocal) utilised in all school subjects to ensure students were learning to reading, writing, listening and speaking the subject terms while learning the subject area thus ensuring that students understood and could use the vocabulary of the subject content. Group discussion was held for about forty minutes in regards to the topic of Academic English. Topics included identifying when participants felt the need to acquire academic English and listing criteria for “best practice” in obtaining academic English. Lastly, the session concluded with discussion as to how NFAs could assist in helping immigrant women and girls attain success in academic English. Kathleen identified the projects of West Australia and Queensland Australian branches and individual members as examples. Addiitonally, the need for academic English is powerful in order to open the door to empowerment.

The Mexican Evening included the dancers of the Elderly School which was very beautiful and a young Mexican cultural dance troupe. Both groups were very energetic! The evening concluded with a Mariachi Band and IFUW members singing and dancing. Delicious hor ‘d eurves – sweet and savory were served with fruit juices and Tequila.

Yesterday the Young Members went to have dinner together at the Café Tacuba in the historic center of Mexico City.  Even two men dared to join us!

After we left the hotel we had a small city tour on the way to our restaurant. We saw the revolutionary monument (which is right around the corner of the Melia Mexico Reforma Hotel, where the conference takes place), went to the Benito Juarez Monument at the Alameda Central park, passed the Palacio de Bellas Artes and the National Post Office, which are both excellent examples of Mexican Architecture in the nineteen hundreds.

Thanks to our guide we got a good overview of the surroundings of the hotel and got to know a lot about Mexico City and its history.

Our Mexican colleagues ordered typical appetizers for us. We had Quesadillas (folded tortilla with cheese), small Tostadas and other delicious Mexican fare. After that, we each ordered different meals such as Mole (a traditional stew), Tamales, Ensalada de Napales (cactus leaf salad), Guacamole and Tacos. The food was excellent!

We had a great evening with very exciting discussions and exchanged a lot of ideas!

Thanks to the Mexican colleagues for this terrific evening!

Dr. Catharina Grau

Today afternoon there was a Younger Members-run workshop which – if I do say so myself (having been involved in the organisation and presentation, I can’t exactly be objective!) – went extremely well. The session was entitled ‘Challenges to Women’s Empowerment in the 21^st Century’ and built on the results of an Empowerment Perception Barometer that we (Younger Members worldwide) had distributed among our networks in the months leading up to the Conference. This is the real potential of new communication technologies: not only do they allow you to be reading about our activities here in Mexico City from wherever you are in the world, they mean we can bring ideas, information and people together in ways that were never possible before.

About thirty women – not all younger members, I’m pleased to say – attended. We began with a presentation on women’s achievements worldwide in the twentieth century: the rights to vote and run for political office, increasing participation in higher education and greater social and economic leverage. However we’d identified areas in which there is still ‘work to do’ around the world, including legal equality, environmental issues (particularly climate change) and violence against women. It was these that we sent out to younger members, asking how important they perceived each issue to be in their own region.

In the pre-Conference survey, two themes stood out as globally significant: women’s perceptions of themselves and of others, and women’s political representation. After this introduction, workshop participants split into three groups, each of which considered these issues and potential remedial actions for a specific region (Europe, Africa and the Pacific/North America – with more participants we would have formed groups for each region) and then reported back to everyone.

What was most striking was the extent to which the same causes/influences, and potential solutions, emerged repeatedly across the regional groups: media influences on women’s self-images, the extent to which women judge themselves (and others) harshly, the importance of social and organisational support for women in politics, the value of mentoring and being encouraged forward into leadership positions.

We’ll be compiling the survey (and workshop) results to email back to participants, and we intend to submit the afternoon’s content as a paper for publication on the IFUW website after the conference. Best of all, with everyone’s contact details we’re also considering repeating the survey – hopefully with a larger and more geographically-diverse sample of respondents – in the future, possibly even on an annual basis. This kind of evolving data should make for a fascinating presentation at the next conference in three years’ time, as well as giving us an opportunity to build a global network toward common interest – and benefit.

But tonight, we’re taking some time out to build more social connections: the younger Mexican participants – of whom there are about a dozen – are taking us out… we asked them to pick somewhere good that only locals know about. Who knows where we might end up?!

Michelle Imison

Friday was the first of two seminar and workshop days on the themes of Advancing Women Through Lifelong Learning and Challenges to Women’s Empowerment in the 21st Century, with meetings of the IFUW Regional Groupings in the evening.

Nicole and Kathleen attended the Challenges to Women’s Empowerment theme program that started with a keynote address by Ana Garcia, UNIFEM Regional Programme Director for Mexico, Central America, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. She defined empowerment as the assumption of power: women must assume power to achieve human rights and education. Although there are UN conventions, declarations and other documents, there must be citizenship education for both boys and girls, men and women, so that there is understanding of human rights, that men have a responsibility for the protection and respect of women through the prevention of violence against women, that women have a responsibility to assert their human rights, and parents/schools to teach children about human rights, respect and non-violence.

Seminars followed and Kathleen convened, and Nicole rapporteured, the seminar “Moving Women into Decision Making: Achieving Equality” with 4 presentations. Shaila Rao Mistry, USA, spoke on the impact of women business owners and entrepreneurs and their influence on the economy. Kagaba Mediatrice and Professor Shirley Randall, Rwanda, spoke of the economic and social recovery of Rwanda after the devastating 1994 genocide of over 1 million killed and 500,000 girls and women raped. The genocide and rape forced the government to emplement many changes as the country was left with a 74% head of household as single women and girls. The significant changes to empower women to lead and be decision makers, own and inherit property, obtain loans, etc has made Rwanda a leader in East Africa in women’s participation in government and the economy. Associate Professor Chin-Yi Yang and Association Professor Wan-Ying Yang, Taiwan, spoke on actions to change cultural traditions through democratic and legislative implementation actions. And finally, Kathryn Seymour, Australia, presented a youth development framework that she has developed in consultation with young people for the Australian government. She particularly spoke on leadership and decision making. It was recommended that her presentation be made to the new IFUW Board for consideration of how to empower IFUW Young Members.

Following lunch, Nicole attending the Young Members Workshop while Kathleen attended The Second Life: Women Take Late Chances workshop on the obstacles women face returning to university after childbearing/childrearing or later in life for career progression. In the young mermbers workshop participants discussed how far women had come in the 20th century. In the 21st century women still have become strong leaders, but there is still a long way to go. The presenters had sent out a survey to IFUW members all over the world asking them to rank the importance of specific issues impacting women in their home countries. The “Empowerment Barometer Results” indiciated that the two major issues that survey participants identified included women’s image of themselves and others and women representation in world politics. Small group discussions were held on the topics and results were shared in a large group.

In the evening, Kathleen and Nicole attended their respective regional meetings, ie Pacific Graduate Women Network and North America. PGWNetwork will try to have a face-to-face meeting in Sydney during Australian Council and Annual General Meeting. It is also concerned about the economic crisis which has constrained some countries from continuing membership in IFUW. WG USA met with the Canadian Federeation in order to discuss the topic of creating a North American Region. All members introduced themselves followed by discussion with presidents of both orgaizations. Goals and possible joint projects were discussed along with future meeting opportunities. After the meeting concluded WG USA met with one another to discuss the direction of the organization. Nicole was asked to speak about the Young Members program with respect to training and topics being discussed.

Kathleen (Kathy) Mumford, AFUW WA CIR
Nicole Nelson, WG-USA Young Member

A very busy and intensive day! When I returned to our room, Nicole Nelson, WG USA, was already asleep! I am writing this in the Morning/Afternoon Tea space and will be as short as possible as I too must get some sleep!

Today was the Conference Opening with guest speakers and Mexican singers; Business Session 1 to introduce nominees for President, Vice-Presidents, Committee Conveners and Members; receipt of financial reports; Business Session 2 to formally receive resolutions; Voting; Parellel Sessions for Building Multigenerational Leadership; Plenary Session highlighting national project, Bina Roy Partners in Development projects, and Hegg Hoffett funding for displaced women professionals; Training program for facilitators of the session on Sunday to build consensus on the IFUW Programme of Action for 2010-2013; Young Members Training; Open Forum for networking; Open Sessions on Resolutions and Constitutional Amendments. Oh, and lunch included a special project presentations and presentations on the IFUW Fellowships (Scholarships) Programme.

The Conference opening was addressed by Dr Patricia Galeana, the founding president of the Mexican Federation which is celebrating its 20th year; Olga Sanchez Cordero, Minister of the Mexican Supreme Court; Kyung-wha Kang, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights and member of the Korean Federation; and Dr Luis Raul Gonzalez Perez, Chief Legal Adviser of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. The IFUW President, Louise Croot of New Zealand, and Dr Galeana cut a cake to celebrate IFUW’s 90th birthday. Nicole will write more on the speeches another day.

Voting results for the board will be announced in an official IFUW email. The Committee Conveners and Members elected were not announced as the voting was at dinner time.

Along with attendance at the main sessions, Nicole helped with credentials, eg ensuring voting delegates received voting cards and checked in so that it could be determined that a quorum was present so that the Business Sessions could do their business as well as vote. She also participated in the Young Member session, the Women Graduates – USA delegate meeting, and the IFUW presentation lunch. Kathy attended the facilitator training and the consensus building sessions on resolutions and constitutional amendments.

Kathleen (Kathy) Mumford, AFUW WA CIR
Nicole Nelson, WG-USA Young Member