Calendar

The WCC member churches worldwide are once more invited to pray for peace on 21 September 2009 or the closest Sunday.

The International Day of Prayer for Peace offers an opportunity for church communities in all places to pray and act together to nurture lasting peace in the hearts of people, their families, communities and societies.

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The World YWCA Governing Board will hold its annual meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. The meeting brings together twenty women and young women members of the governing board representing each region, to discuss how the movement has been faring in the past one-year.

The forty-seventh session of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), will take place from July 12 to 30, 2010 in New York.

CEDAW is often referred to as the international human rights treaty for women. The 2007 World YWCA Council adopted a resolution requesting the YWCA movement to place emphasis on CEDAW implementation as an affirmation of the organisation's commitment to global action for women.

For more information on upcoming CEDAW sessions visit the CEDAW official website

The focus will be on food and gender. This is an opportunity for the churches to lift up the voices of small-scale food producers, particularly women, as an act of solidarity and in recognition of the key role they play in food production and the need to protect and strengthen their rights.

With more than one billion people living in hunger, we must be part of the movement for justice that demands that all people have access to the food they need for life.

The Week of 10-17 October is a key time for action:

• 16 October is World Food Day
• 17 October is International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

Should you have any questions or require more information pertaining to the Week of Action, please email: amunzara@e-alliance.ch



Imagine a week without violence. Imagine women walking the streets at night without fear. Imagine police officers without guns. Imagine female genital mutilation, domestic violence and rape as faded memories of a long gone era.

This is the vision of the global movement of YWCAs. This is what the YWCA Week Without Violence works to achieve.

The YWCA Week Without Violence is an annual global campaign to stop violence in all its forms. Throughout the week activities focus on raising awareness, promoting attitude change and enabling individuals and organisations to begin positive actions towards ending violence in their communities.

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The day provides rural women and their organisations with a focal point to raise the profile of rural women, sensitise both government and public to their crucial, yet largely unrecognised roles and promote action in their support.

The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty has been observed every year since 1993, when the General Assembly of the United Nations, by Resolution 47/196, designated this day to promote awareness of the need to eradicate poverty and destitution in all countries, particularly in developing countries - a need that has become a development priority.

World YWCA Regional Training Institute for Europe will be held in Estonia from October 20-23, 2010.

World YWCA Regional Training Institute for Latin America will be held in Mexico from November 7 - 13, 2010.

The World YWCA and the World Alliance of YMCAs will issue a joint call to prayer during the Week of Prayer and World Fellowship.

During this week, the two movements pray and act together on a particular theme in solidarity with members and partners around the world.

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The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an international campaign originating from the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute sponsored by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) at Rutgers University in 1991. Participants chose the dates, November 25, International Day Against Violence Against Women, and December 10, International Human Rights Day, in order to symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasise that such violence is a human rights violation.

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The date of 29 November was chosen because of its meaning and significance to the Palestinian people. On that day in 1947, the General Assembly adopted resolution 181 (II), which came to be known as the Partition Resolution. That resolution provided for the establishment in Palestine of a "Jewish State" and an "Arab State", with Jerusalem as a corpus separatum under a special international regime. Of the two States to be created under this resolution, only one, Israel, has so far come into being.

The International Day of Solidarity has traditionally provided an opportunity for the international community to focus its attention on the fact that the question of Palestine is still unresolved and that the Palestinian people is yet to attain their inalienable rights as defined by the General Assembly, namely, the right to self-determination without external interference, the right to national independence and sovereignty, and the right to return to their homes and property from which they had been displaced.

In response to the call of the United Nations, various activities are undertaken annually by Governments and civil society in observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. These activities include, among other things, the issuance of special messages of solidarity with the Palestinian people, the organization of meetings, the dissemination of publications and other information material, and the screening of film

World AIDS Day is an annual campaign to bring attention to the global AIDS pandemic

Started on December 1, 1988, World AIDS Day is about raising money, increasing awareness, fighting prejudice and improving education. World AIDS Day is important in reminding people that HIV has not gone away, and that there are many things still to be done.

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Volunteer Day offers an opportunity for volunteer organisations and individual volunteers to make visible their contributions at local, national and international levels - to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

Human Rights day is celebrated annually across the world on December 10. The date was chosen to honour the United Nations General Assembly's adoption and proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which occurred on December 10, 1948, the first global enunciation of human rights.

The World YWCA was one of the first organisations to bring women’s human rights onto the United Nations agenda. In 1948, the World YWCA prepared and presented to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, information gathered from member associations around the world. The World YWCA continues to reaffirm the importance of the full and equal enjoyment of human rights by women and girls.