International Students’ Day 2015
On International Students Day, 17 November 2015, GWI calls for States and policy makers to actively promote the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to women students. As four key strands of research and technological development, it is critical that women’s contribution in these fields is increased and integrated. Read the full press release...
Statistics update on violence against women
GWI calls for an end to all violence against women and girls and the barriers this can place in the way to their right to quality, lifelong education. Girls and women should not have to suffer the threat of gender based-violence at home, school, work or in public. To read GWI’s policy position on various forms of violence against girls and women that affect their ability to access education, their health and their economic independence, follow this link. For the latest statistics on violence against women and girls, read Chapter 6, on Violence Against Women from the UN Report ‘The World’s Women 2015’, here....
President Catherine Bell at Girl’s CHARGE side event, United Nations General Assembly
President Catherine Bell on the Brookings Institute Girls’ CHARGE panel discussion at the United Nations General Assembly: Programmatic models that are most successful in cultivating leadership in girls’ education. Graduate Women International’s intentions Lessons learnt How we’ve tweaked our model over time Good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me to share this panel. I would first like to say a few words about the nearly centenary organisation to which I belong, Graduate Women International, founded in 1919 as the International Federation of University Women. Our organisation was founded by local leaders, women of intellect and visionaries, who believed in the rights of women to achieve equality and education up to the highest levels. In fact, one of our founders was Dean of Barnard College from 1911 to 1946. From these foundations local leadership has thrived throughout our federation. We are a member-led organisation, with member federations and associations in 60 countries and representatives in all regions of the world, uniting around 25,000 individual members. GWI with its national members fosters leadership throughout the organisation and in communities through projects. Our model is based on a member driven approach which is developed at the grassroots and connects the local, national, regional and international levels of advocacy and change. We are active in international advocacy, support leading academic work through fellowships and grants, and run projects to further girls’ and women’s lifelong education. GWI takes leadership to mean the capacity to involve especially girls and women in leading, influencing and acting to drive change, within families, peer groups, communities and the wider society towards gender equality in education and beyond. Through our programmes over 96 years we have learnt that harnessing the commitment of our volunteers, requires robust frameworks, monitoring, evaluation and recognition of the value of such tireless commitment given by our individual members. While good intentions create short-term gains, it is the robust frameworks, monitoring and evaluation that are needed to sustain these intentions and create impactful and long-lasting change. We have taken the lessons learnt from our grassroots projects, like the Aurora Project in South Africa, and created projects that can be replicated and scaled across countries, to maximise the use of resources. We know that the voices of our members and their communities, and most importantly the girls themselves, must be at the forefront of the projects we develop in order to achieve results and ensure sustainability. GWI’s project “Girls’ Choices”, one of our commitments as part of Girls CHARGE, provides teenage girls with workshops and mentoring to support them to complete secondary school and transition to university, further education or professional work. The project provides our...
Mexican Federation of University Women
Graduate Women International are pleased to announce that its national affiliated member in Mexico, The Mexican Federation of University Women (FEMU) is hosting a national seminar: Feminism and Sustainable Development, on November 26 and 27, 2015. Specialised papers will be presented on sustainable development from a feminist perspective. For more information and to submit papers please visit the FEMU website....
GWI Oral Statement at HRC 30
GWI called for indigenous people’s right to quality, lifelong, culturally appropriate education at the Human Right’s Council’s Annual half-day panel discussion on the rights of indigenous people, 22 September 2015. Nina Joyce, GWI UN Representative read the statement on the organisation’s behalf. The full written statement can be read here and a UN TV video of Nina reading the statement can be found here, at 2.10. ...
