There were a number of presenters including Meera Bondre (Convenor) who illustrated IGL with a photo a group of four of us who had presented a panel on Empowerment for Women at Women’s Worlds Hyderabad some years ago: This was Fiona Bakas(YM from Dunedin), Yeabu Tholley(YM from Sierra leone), Meera Bondre(India) and myself. A highlight of the webinar was the survey poll part way through which made it more interactive and engaging. There were several of us from New Zealand including Lorelle George, Louise Croot and most exciting was Pouya as one of the presenters.
“The excellent presentations of Sudha Shrivastava, Meera Bondre, Nneka Chiedozie-Udeh, Perine Wagdi and Pouya Saeedi highlighted the stakes and opportunities of a diverse and intergenerational GWI membership, and helped generate ideas for increasing and retaining membership and enhancing leadership”. GWI
For myself, from this webinar we can learn that all ages/stages are valuable and we can complement each other in fulfilling and experiencing the values of GWI of education, friendship and advocacy.
Following that, I took part in the webinar for National Presidents and CIRs. For us in Australia and New Zealand it was a horrible time -2AM for NZ. I was glad I attended though. GWI president Terry Oudraad described the history of the organisations, the current state, and the activities coming up. There were 28 attendees quite a few of whom I knew or recognised including Linda Williams now president of FUWA. One theme in the discussion was the idea of getting to know another country for some situation/relationship or activity….this being different from twinning. The group was keen on having regular zoom type meetings but fortunately Patrice(president of GB) mentioned her Antipodean friends!
Shirley Gillett(CIR)