soroptimistgal

[soroptimistgal]

"Women do two-thirds if the worlds work, receive ten percent of the world's income and own one percent of the world's land" - UN Decade of Women ------ can those words and statistics please sink in. This math doesn't add up.

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Cheri Flemming addressing the Friendship Dinner. She has been such a fabulous President!

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Welcome from Sharon Fisher and welcome from a few representatives from the First Nations. Fabulous way to experience Vancouver.

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Two generations of Soroptimists. My mom has always been the best mentor, supporter and mom that anyone could ask for.

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Installation Dinner is a fabulous night. The gavel gets passed from one fabulous leader to another. Tonight we celebrate the wonderful achievements of Governor Linda Haines and we welcome incoming Governor Dora Zavala. Dora has big shoes to fill but I know she can do it!

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Awards!!! Karen Block --Distinguished Soroptimist! Plus a fabulous book by Maria Shriver.

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Spring Conference Opening Ceremonies isn’t complete without a mother daughter shot. Two generations of Soroptimists!

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President Helen Block enters the Opening Ceremonies for the Camino Real Region of Soroptimist International of the Americas Spring Conference in Valencia, CA. We are ready for an informative and fun weekend!

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This is myself and a friend from Union College, Mary Olushoga.  Mary was part of a fabulous panel on Critical Impediments in Attaining Sustainable Programs in Global Communities.  The discussion was put on by the International Affairs Division of the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Clubs, Inc.  

Mary specifically spoke about her organization, African Women Power Network, http://awpnetwork.com/ "An online platform powering small business success for African Entrepreneurs through business resources, educational tools, and community support." Mary's voice was heard when issues were happening in her home country of Nigeria.  She realized that she wants to be able to give that same opportunity to other women.  She has been working hard on that ever since.  

All of the speakers were incredibly interesting.  

Nesese Ramadar is a nutritionist and she spoke about how important it is to have good nutrition.  Additionally women need to pay special attention to keep their bodies healthy especially if they are pregnant.  Not enough education goes out there to women for them to fully understand the affect that nutrition has.  

Her talk went hand in hand with Dr. Icilma Fergus's talk.  She talked about cardiovascular disease and how it disproportionately affects black women.  Socioeconomic levels are also a huge influence on access and knowledge of the healthcare system.  She brought up a lot of really amazing points.  

The final speaker was heavily tied into Mary's presentation about networking and working together to achieve our goals.  Carolina Valasco is the Senior Relationship Manager at Linkedin.  She ran through the program and gave a lot of fabulous tips and only an insider would know.  She also brought up some very practical strategies and great ways to use Linkedin to reach a larger network.

No matter how you break it down we need better education, better access to healthcare, a better understanding of healthcare, education on health and nutrition and we need to work together and help each other out.  Being linked together makes us stronger and more knowledgable.  See you all on Linkedin!  :-)  

[soroptimistgal]

I'm going to have to do multiple posts tonight since I was so busy on Tuesday and Wednesday I wasn't able to post and my head was so full of amazing information that I didn't have a chance to post at night.  So here is a roundup of my week.  

Tuesday:

Women's Empowerment Principles, Equality Means Business!

Opening Presenter (not pictured above) Soon-Young Yoon, UN Representative for International Alliance of Women and Chair of NGO/CSW in New York.  She set the stage for the other presenters.  

Ole Hansen, Head of Global Compact LEAD -- He states that businesses have the responsibility to make gender equality a priority. Equality is a fundamental human right and it is essential to making a good business.  

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick gave a fabulous talk about bringing men into the equation.  To me, she has a very good point.  If we do not get support from the Presidents and CEO (most of which are male) then we will never be able to fully achieve equality.  She is not saying that women need men to come in on their white horse and save us, she is saying that we all need to be working on this together. Gender equality isn't just an issue for women it is an issue for men too. If we do not open the dialogue and bring everyone to the table.  

Speaking of bringing men to the table, Arif Zamen was also there and he is from Commonwealth Business Council and Corporate Governance. He spoke about what the Commonwealth is doing to improve gender equality.  He very much agrees that we all need to be working together, there needs to be accountability and a solid plan.  I think it was nice in general that there was a man at the table.  

Lakshmi Puri, Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women.  Ms. Puri very eloquently stated that we need to address gender inequalities when we are discussing all of our issues.  Everything affects women/girls differently then men/boys.  If we do not have these discussions then nothing will change.  We have 3 targets to reach our goal of gender equality.

1) Elimination of all forms of violence against women 

2) Access to resources and capabilities 

3) Voice, participation and leadership

We need to empower women by empowering humanity!

"He for SHE" S - Security H - Human Rights E - Equality and Empowerment 

This panel was really amazing to me, mostly because it brought a lot of ideas that I had not thought about.  Additionally I think it is both wonderful that the 7 principles have been identified and horrifying that they even need to be.  Here they are:

1) Establish high-level corporate leadership for gender equality 

2) Treat all women and men fairly at work - respect and support human rights and nondiscrimination 

3) Ensure the health, safety and well-being of all women and men workers

4) Promote education, training and professional development for women 

5) Implement enterprise development, supply chain and marketing practices that empower women

6) Promote equality through community initiatives and advocacy 

7) Measure and publicly report on progress to achieve gender equality

So as you can see the majority of the principles 5 of the 7 aren't even women specific.  Women's empowerment is an issue for all of us.  

"Before we look at the glass ceiling we must look at the sticky floor" - Oh how true that is.

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Karen, Sharon Fisher, Linda Haines, Giger Cole and Carol all getting ready for another great day at CSW58. We just finish the briefing and are now prepared for the day ahead.

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Get the word out guys! Shocking? It should be when you think if how many hundreds of thousands of people (mostly women and girls) are trafficked and prostituted throughout the world. "The Swedish Model", which criminalizes paying for, not selling, sex. "The Swedish experience suggests that any approach against trafficking must also reduce prostitution and the demand for it, since all "johns" are fuel for traffickers." (From Swedish Association of Women's shelters and young women's empowerment centre SKR) This photo is a picture of a marketing tool, yup it's a condom! Remember prostitution isn't about sex it's about violence, power, inequality, etc. prostitution is not the world's oldest profession it's the world's oldest form of oppression. So much to think about. I do whole heatedly agree with the Swedish Model. Thanks Sweden for being so progressive! http://www.womenlobby.org/news/New-Resources/article/the-swedish-association-of-women-s?lang=en

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Bette Levy of Soroptimist International doing a fabulous time running the North American/European Caucus. She's explaining to us what the advocacy document is and what we are trying to accomplish with it. A very basic overview is that this is our response to the agreed upon conclusions. These are the items we want to see in the new document. This is an incredible session to sit through. I am blown away by these women! Collect data, budget allocation, eliminating stereotypes, wow there is a lot!

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Past President Sharon Fisher gave a wonderful presentation about empowering women. She gave about 20 fascinating examples of what Soroptimist clubs are doing throughout the world. A few include (but certainly not limited to) our work in Sierra Leon, Taiwan, Panama, and Papua New Guinea. She also did a great job talking about the Live Your Dream campaign. For more information you can visit the following: www.soroptimistinternational.org www.liveyourdream.org

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We had a really fabulous reception with the entire delegation last night. It was great to meet all of the women from around the world who are attending CSW58 to improve the lives of women and girls locally and internationally. President Ann Garvie gave a wonderfully inspiring speech then honored our women in New York and their work with the UN. I am grateful to be amongst such impressive women. That was quite a day #1. Oh the photo... I won the prize of the night. When I opened it I discovered that it was a Lego model of the United Nations. I couldn't have been more excited! Wonder what today will hold!

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Camino Real Region represents at CSW58! We had an amazing advocacy training session and we are ready to go for upcoming week!

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I'm official!