International Women’s Day

Whitney Goldman

Health 3 - Nyaruguru District

On March 8th, Rwanda joined the ranks of many other countries is supporting International Women’s Day.  Throughout the country, District, Sector, and Cell offices held special events and speeches in celebration. 

Scouring the internet for some good old fashioned news and articles, I came across a few  things I found interesting and want to share:

- The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day at http://www.internationalwomensday.com... The Gender Agenda: Gaining Momentum.

- The World Economic Forum’s best places for women using their rank in gender gap (according to health and survival, access to education, political empowerment, and economic participation) in order from 1-10: Iceland, Finland,  Norway, Sweden, Ireland, New Zealand, Denmark,  Philippines/Nicaragua, Switzerland.

 - An excerpt from remarks from Michelle Bachelet, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women at the International Women’s Day Commemorative Event 

            “If we act with courage, conviction and commitment, we can change violence against            women from being the most pervasive violation of human rights to being a rare occurrence that is considered unacceptable and no longer tolerated. Each one of us has responsibility and duty to act.”

While she goes on to talk about the role of the Member States of the United Nations, I think it’s nice to end the point here.  Period. 

Read the full transcript here 

- The UN’s official “One Woman” song.  Did you miss it?  If so, you can listen to the song here

- Current Peace Corps volunteers by gender: 62% female, 38% male.  Find more fun facts about Peace Corps here 

 - An interesting point from  Zillah Eisenstein in her article International Women’s Day: New challenges ahead
             “On this Day, let us reject the idea of "unity" as "oneness" and rather understand that women's power lies in her diverse unity. Feminists of all sorts have written of "diverse commonality" and "common differences" for years. And it may also be the case that women are now more diverse than they have ever been given newly formed economic disparities across the globe.”

The full article can be found here

I hope you all had a wonderful March 8th, no matter where you were or how you chose to celebrate.