YWCA News current

Since its beginning the World YWCA Power to Change Fund has been making a positive difference to lives of women and young women around the world. Direct grant making to YWCA Member Associations has meant that projects have benefited from a capacity building approach The Power to Change Fund provides innovative leadership programmes and empowering opportunities through dialogues, training and sharing of experiences and skills at regional, national and global advocacy platforms. Projects in 2011 included a range of YWCA initiatives from around the world on violence against women, sexual and reproductive health and rights and HIV, and economic empowerment. Three such projects were carried out in Myanmar, Colombia and Tanzania.

“Today I felt the true strength of the women’s movement in Malawi. For so long it’s always been about different organisations with similar goals working in isolation, unable to draw from each other’s strengths, or learn from the other’s weaknesses. But on this day, women, girls, rich, poor, Christian and otherwise transcended all manner of real or perceived barriers, going above and beyond politics to raise a unified voice in protest against the abuse of women.” -  Rebecca Phwitiko, President YWCA of Malawi.

News has just come in that Jenta Tau, the 2011 World YWCA intern from the Solomon Islands, has been appointed the new General Secretary of the YWCA of the Solomon Islands.

Four young women, who attended the World YWCA meeting in Zurich this past summer, will represent the YWCA USA at the 56^th  Session of the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women in February – World YWCA Broad member Luna Lee and Kris Silvestry from the Northeast, Jenna Lodge from the Southeast and Leanne Baumung from the Pacific Region, who in 2008 worked in Geneva as part of the World YWCA team as a one year intern . In addition, Sandra Cano from New England will serve as an intern for the World YWCA delegation that includes women from 18 countries. Women led non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from around the globe gather each year to promote women’s rights as outlined in the Millennium Development Goals.

“We don’t want nuclear power! Stop nuclear power plants NOW!”

 The two day Global Conference for a Nuclear Power Free World held in Yokohama, Japan, on January 14-15, 2012, attracted some 11,500 people from 30 countries worldwide, as well as 30,000 who watched online, to help create safe societies with justice and to cry out “NO!” to both nuclear weapons and to nuclear power, which had been promoted as “clean energy”. The conference was organised by grassroots NGOs and supported by many individuals and organisations including the YWCA of Japan, to provide a space for people to network, exchange information and ideas, contribute skills and knowledge, and share actions to make the world free from nuclear power.

Girls Not Brides is a new global partnership committed to ending the harmful traditional practice of child marriage. Initiated by The Elders, Girls Not Brides  brings together more than 50 organisations from around the world including the World YWCA, who are currently working to tackle child marriage at the grassroots, national and global levels. As a movement, the World YWCA is committed to promoting women, young women and girl’s rights and fully supports the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In March 2010 the World YWCA participated in the first global High Level Summit of Religious Leaders on HIV concluded in the Netherlands, along with high level religious and spiritual leaders from many of the world’s major religions and pledged “stronger, more visible and practical leadership in response to HIV”. This month as part of a follow-up from the summit, a survey has been released to gather information to develop and strengthen opportunities for dialogue between networks of people living with HIV and religious leaders, faith-based organisations, and faith communities at country level.

On 12 January 2010, as witnessed with horror by many on their TV screens, Haiti was devastated by a 7.3 magnitude earthquake which traumatised the country and its people, led to vast loss of life, dramatic destitution and the uprooting of many Haitians. Thanks to donations from across the globe, including from YWCAs worldwide, as well as relief efforts from international humanitarian organisations, close to 900 Internally displaced persons (IDP) camps were set up for some 600,000 Haitians, over 300,000 of whom were women.

The 56^th  session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) to be held in February 2012 in New York promises to be an exciting and progressive event focusing on the empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and other current challenges.

Date: July 22-27, 2012