Jane Sloane - IWDA Executive Director
Up Close and Personal
Happy New Year, and Happy 25th Anniversary Year to IWDA! I was thrilled to celebrate the end of a very hard 2009 and to welcome in a birthday year in 2010!
I was speaking with Rohini Weerasinghe, Executive Director, Kantha Shakthi in Sri Lanka the day before the elections in Sri Lanka. Rohini was telling me that staff were packing up all valuables in the office in anticipation of violence. And yet, despite the anxiety and recent violence, Rohini remained upbeat:
“Thank you and all our friends at IWDA for your concern about the situation in our country and for your solidarity with us. One good sign is that people who were divided before are getting united now. Thanks to the work of the NGOs, civil society is showing signs of growing and improving awareness.”
Change might feel incremental to us and yet it’s powerfully felt by our program partners in terms of their work and what they see around them. In this respect, it’s vital that it’s their voices that we hear so that we can be as close as possible to knowing that our support counts.
It’s why IWDA doesn’t have offices located in the Asia Pacific region, so that the women and communities with whom we partner are the ones in control and have every opportunity to build support systems around them, increasing their own skills and the resilience of their communities.
It’s also why we need to help Haitians to speak for themselves as soon as they can rather than have their experiences interpreted by people whose lives bear little resemblance to those being reported.
“Why have a women focused aid agency?” a woman asked me recently. I responded, “It’s so that the specific needs of women and girls, and of men and boys, can be met rather than assuming that one approach to development or to disaster response will satisfy the needs of both genders.”
Claire Rowland, IWDA Program Manager, in speaking about the proposed Pacific Trade Agreement, PACER Plus last week said,
“with the introduction of cash to communities for land leases for logging in the Solomon Islands, women’s rights to be engaged in decision making on land use were increasingly sidelined.
“This sidelining of women’s rights in the decision making process has now led to what communities we’re working with perceive as unsustainable land use, with terrible impacts on community livelihoods, and safety and peace and relationships between women and men.”
In Haiti, there are currently 63,000 pregnant women in Port-au-Prince, 7,000 of whom will deliver in the coming month. These women need immediate access to clean delivery kits, access to emergency services in the event of pregnancy complications. In a crisis such as Haiti, women are more vulnerable to sexual violence and thus HIV - treatment within 3 days of an assault can prevent HIV and within 5 days can prevent pregnancy.
This is the critical work of IWDA, to advocate for the specific needs of women and girls to be met in countries where the burden of poverty is disproportionately felt by women and where this burden is increasing. To this end, we are also presenting the successful Asia Pacific Breakthrough initiative at the 54th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations in New York next month and participating in the launch of a global Women, Faith and Development Alliance.
Given the task ahead of us, and in IWDA’s 25th Anniversary year, it’s just as well we’re supported by so many good women and men. Last year, Mary Hawkins, IWDA President and myself invited Chris Grumm, President and CEO, Women’s Funding Network, to come to Australia when we attended the WFN Annual Conference. IWDA Empower and major donors will have the opportunity to hear Chris speak in Melbourne (16 February) and Sydney (18 February) this month about the potency of investing in women’s funds and the transformative difference these living bequests can make to the lives of women and girls. Chris will also be speaking about the success of the Women Moving Millions campaign, with WFN as the powerhouse driving the campaign.
The Australian Women Donors’ Network is hosting lunches in Sydney and Melbourne with Chris Grumm together with the co-founder of Women Moving Millions, and founder of the New York Based, Sister Fund, Helen LaKelly Hunt, whom the Women Donors Network invited to Australia two years ago. This will be a great opportunity to hear two inspiring women and I encourage you to book a seat or a table.
Beyond these functions is, of course, the opportunity for you to create and host your own fabulous function in support of IWDA’s work, especially for International Women’s Day in and around March 8. And of course, you can host an event at any time during the year and contribute to IWDA in celebration of our 25th anniversary - for instance you could have a function for 25 friends and donate $250 or $2,500 or $25,000 to IWDA’s programs.
Happy Anniversary to IWDA and to all the heroines and heroes who make our work with women possible.
Jane Sloane
Executive Director
International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA)
“When women benefit, the whole community benefits.”
Tags: JaneThe only way forward for women in a largely pre- literate society is for those who have been upwardly mobile to help others
Grace Mera Molisa
Poet, politician, educator, Vanuatu
