International Women’s Day
Sunday, 8th March is International Women’s Day! Every year, IACD is proud to celebrate this day along with millions around the world. The theme for International Women’s Day 2020 is #EachForEqual.
The organizers of International Women’s Day have this to say about #EachForEqual:
An equal world is an enabled world.
Individually, we’re all responsible for our own thoughts and actions – all day, every day.
We can actively choose to challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations and celebrate women’s achievements.
Collectively, each one of us can help create a gender equal world.
Let’s all be #EachforEqual.
https://www.internationalwomensday.com/Theme
Community Development and Women’s Empowerment: Practice Insights Issue 15
To celebrate International Women’s Day, IACD dedicated our fifteenth issue of Practice Insights to women’s empowerment and community development. This issue contains seventeen articles from every region of the globe — contributors wrote to us from India, the United States, Nepal, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, Ghana, Senegal, Myanmar, Mauritius, Zimbabwe, and Scotland to name a few.
This special issue was co-edited by Anita Paul and Maryam Admadian, IACD’s Regional Directors for South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, respectively. Dee Brooks, Regional Director for Oceania, and Connie Loden, Regional Director for North America, also provided valued contributions to the editing process. Their editorial has been reproduced below:
IACD team would like to thank all contributors for your contributions for this special issue of Practice Insight featuring on Community development and Women’s Empowerment for International Women’s Day (March 8, 2020). As we celebrate the 25th year anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995) which provided a progressive blueprint for women’s rights movements, your voices from the grassroots reflects the successes, as well as future challenges, for achieving the vision of a sustainable world with gender equality as the cornerstone.
The 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development objective of leaving no one behind would only be possible if gender equality “SDG Goal 5”is truly held to be integral to all the 17 SDGs. Gender Equality is a right and ensuring the rights of women and girls across all the SDGs will lay the foundations for a just and equitable society that works for all. At times, gender equity is essential to achieve gender equality.
Contributions from field practitioners, academicians, students and community leaders have all echoed the sentiment that while much has been achieved in the past, much more still remains to be done to change societal attitude of patriarchal supremacy which actually works as a stumbling block for inclusive development and growth in leadership roles.
The IACD is always dedicated to work towards the fulfillment of this critical SDG which is central to achieving inclusive growth and development for all specifically for women and girls because we all believe that without Women Leadership and Community Development there is no sustainable development around the world.
We would also like to acknowledge the contribution of Dee Brooks our Regional Director for Oceania and Connie Loden Regional Director, North America for their valuable insights and inputs in putting together this issue.
The full, web-interactive issue is available here, and all of our past issues of Practice Insights can be found here.
What’s Next?
We want to hear from women in community development! In this issue, you will find a Love Letter addressed to all the women who practice community development. We’ve issued a call for replies to this letter:
We invite other women to join us in imagining and dreaming how our field can work to address its power imbalances. Please share your stories of marginalization with us. Contact us to talk and share. We want women to feel supported and have opportunities to share their experiences. We believe that together, we can create a field that operates from a place of embedded social justice, and that this will make
us all better. Our emails are below; we are eager to hear from you.membership@iacdglobal.org; victoria@socialresearchreimagined.com; holly@sagecons.com
Meredith Greta, Victoria Jupp Kina,and Holly Scheib
