World Service Council Reception: A View from the Room
The power of women sharing stories was evident on February 21, 2011. About 40 women from 12 countries gathered on the eve of the opening day of the Commission on the Status of Women, meeting at a reception organised by the World Service Council.
Young women leaders from the YWCAs of Lesotho, Sri Lanka, and Australia shared stories about their associations’ successes and struggles. Leaders from the YWCAs in the USA, Canada, Belize, and Japan also described their associations’ work.
Several speakers who had attended a World YWCA Regional Training Institute, or had been part of the CSW delegation in the past, credited these training events with inspiring them to develop new programmes when they returned home.
Sarah Arumugam, a local Board member in a Sri Lankan YWCA, spoke of the need to rebuild YWCAs in former conflict areas and to lobby the government to protect human rights and fulfill their obligations under UN Resolution 1325. Rachel Matthews, a local Board member in the YWCA of Australia spoke of several of their programmes, including a volunteer networking programme that provides a safe space for young women to meet and speak personally with high level women they normally would never be able to meet. Martha Kamber, the Executive Director of the YWCA of Brooklyn (New York, USA), talked about how they worked to save their building and invited partners to share their space. Besides being the site of the YWCA’s low-income housing, the building hosts Planned Parenthood, an HIV prevention theatre group for youth, a girl’s theatre group and other allied organisations.
A common theme the young people identified was the leadership difficulties young women face in associations with an entrenched power structure.
Summing up the spirit of the evening, World YWCA General Secretary, Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, spoke of our “global solidarity of sisterhood,” observing that “we feel each other’s pain and celebrate each other’s joys.”
Nyaradzayi also offered a special thanks to World Service Council co-chairs, Joyce Mims and Connie Tate, who organised the event.
The reception was held at the Institute of International Education in New York, graciously made available to the World Service Council.
