International Women
 Every year in March women and men celebrate International Women's Day thoughout the world, including the Highlands. Women@Work celebrates International Women's Day each year with events in different areas. In 2009, there were events in Inverness, Argyll and Skye.
The
Highlands are increasingly a multi-cultural society, with women from a number of countries choosing to settle here. Many can face additional barriers, including language, and discrimination based on race or ethnicity. They also bring with them new perspectives and talents.
The WEA International Women’s Group
The WEA International Women's Group has met for almost 10 years in Inverness. Women from all over the world meet together to discuss issues and share experiences. It hosts an annual Celebrating Diversity day in Inverness.
Women in
Europe
The European Women’s Lobby (EWL) is the largest umbrella organisations of women’s associations in the European Union (EU). The European Women’s Lobby aims at promoting women’s rights and equality between women and men in the European Union. EWL is active in different areas such as women’s economic and social position, women in decision-making, violence against women, women’s diversity etc. EWL works mainly with the institutions of the European Union: the European Parliament, the European Commission and the EU Council of Ministers.
A new organisation founded by the Global Women Inventors and Innovators Network (GWIIN) and London Metropolitan University which aims to provide a cost effective first stop resource centre for women inventors.
Of interest ...
A conference on 'Patterns and Progress of Entrepreneurial Rural Business Women', held 7 March 2006, explored many of the issues facing women in rural areas of Europe. Click here to download a copy of the conference report.
Women in Africa
Women in
Malawi
Scotland and the African country of have close historical ties since the days David Livingstone explored there. It has gained a high profile in Scottish political life recently, since First Minister Jack McConnell returned from a visit. Moved by what he saw, he has launched the Scottish Malawi Appeal Fund.
Recently Helen Mackie, former chair of the Women@Work Advisory Group, and current advisory group member, has become a trustee of the Fund, and has made contact with Esther Chilenje, First Deputy Speaker at the Malawi Parliament. Exchanging information it became clear that women in both areas face many similar problems. Helen is exploring ways that Women@Work can link in some way to women in , if only to understand more fully the global situation of third world women.
Lucia Matibenga came to the UK to speak at International Women's Day 2007 events hosted by Scottish Women's Convention in Glasgow and women@Work in Inverness. She promotes the Dignity! Period campaign in Zimbabwe, which campaigns for the basic female human right to have access to sanitary protection. Without this basic protection, girls miss school, women cannot work, and all risk infection from using other materials.
International Women Organisations
The Women’s fund at the United Nations. It provides financial and technical assistance to programmes and strategies to foster women’s empowerment and gender equality. UNIFEM focuses its activities on four strategic areas: (1) reducing feminised poverty, (2) ending violence against women, (3) reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS among women and girls, and (4) achieving gender equality in democratic governance in times of peace as well as war.
Womankind Worldwide
Charity dedicated to helping women in developing countries to improve their lives. It supports various projects througout the world - including the UK.
Women Worldwide invites women from around the world to contribute their life stories. With these collected stories, the project hopes to give visibility to womenin the world, promote recognition of individual women's achievements, and allow women to share experiences. A copy of their brochure is included in the Projects section of the W@W Document Library
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