Newsletter May 2017

Greetings – Kia ora koutou

It is over a month since worldwomen17 and we have loved hearing your feedback, how the conference inspired and motivated you to be a catalyst for change, this is exactly the outcome we were hoping for.

Many of you are also asking will there be another conference in 2018?  We wanted to create awareness and action through worldwomen17, enable and create change, and in the remainder of 2017 and early 2018 we will be focusing our energies into three or four key areas as highlighted below.

As we evolve we will keep you updated about the possibility of smaller face-to-face events, as we understand that women coming together is very powerful, but in the interim we would love you to get behind some of the amazing speakers and/or activities which speak to your heart and take the inspiration and connection achieved at worldwomen17 out into the world to manifest that change.  

SheEO New Zealand is well underway.  Theresa and Vicki continue to work with Pip Greenwood of Russell McVeagh (Pip was at worldwomen17 and a huge supporter) to ensure the fund is best set up for New Zealand law.   It looks like it will be set up as a charitable trust.   We have over 370 women already indicating they wish to be activators and have decided to cut off subscription at 500 so we can get going.  If you want to be an activator please follow this link http://www.sheeo.world/newzealand to register. 

It may take a little time to get registered for charitable status but SheEO New Zealand will be back out to you in the next month or so with the process for selecting the businesses so we can progress things simultaneously.

Pay equity is in the media right now.  MP Jan Logie’s Private Member’s Equal Pay Amendment Bill will be before parliament on Wednesday May 10th.  New Zealand women are paid on average 12% less an hour than men.  Most of this difference can’t be explained away by arguments such as education or time out of the workforce bringing up children.

Women are getting paid less because they are women.  And it’s not getting any better. 

There has been no progress on closing the gap in recent years.  Equal pay for jobs that are of equal skill, responsibility and stress should not be controversial.  But this Bill doesn’t go that far, it will simply require employers to add gender as a payroll reporting requirement and allow staff to request access to this information at an aggregated level.     

After Kate Sheppard and her colleagues secured votes in New Zealand for women in 1893, following a fourteen year campaign, they identified their next two highest priorities as pushing for the right of women to become MP’s and equal pay for work of equal value. It took over a further 25 years, until 1919, to achieve the first goal and a hundred years on from then women are still waiting for the second.  Let’s not wait another 100 years!  We should each do everything we can to support this initiative.  Contact your local MP, write, blog, speak about the matter. It will not change unless women raise their voices. 

Denise continues to receive amazing support for the Cambodia Charitable Trust (CCT) as a result of worldwomen17. 

- Tara Lorigan (Founder of CoOfWomen and attendee at worldwomen17) kindly offered Denise membership of CoOfWomen to help support the trust.

- There have been several more libraries and bikes donated and girls sponsored.   

- Janesce/Bestow Beauty (owner Janine Tait was at worldwomen17) held a conference and asked Denise to present her worldwomen17 speech there. This resulted in a further 48 girls being sponsored. 

- Denise has been asked to speak by a company whose staff attended worldwomen17 and the speaking fee will go to CCT.

- Westpac, many of their team were at worldwomen17, have offered to put Denise in front of groups to talk about CCT and are looking at other ways to help such as volunteer days, financial literacy material for teachers training colleges, days for girls sewing. 

Tererai's life story was a powerful and memorable session at worldwomen17.  As you will remember Tererai wrote down her dreams of going to America for higher education, sealed them in a tin can, and buried them under a rock, ultimately redesigning the blueprint of her life.  We are delighted to let you know that the worldwomen team is working on The 5th Dream with Tererai Trent to fund a project that will bring opportunities for jobs, income and education for women and children in rural Zimbabwe.  We will share more with you in the next newsletter as things fall into place.   We would love you to help activate this dream.  Tererai’s new book, The Awakened Woman: Remembering & Reigniting Our Sacred Dreams, is due for release on October 3^rd.  You can pre-order it here.

Wow! It is a great feeling to see all these things happening.

We are also now in the position to refresh and update our website post worldwomen17 (sorry it has taken a while ... small team with lots to focus on!).  We are looking at offering lots of information that can be downloaded; tips for establishing a charitable trust, some self-help tools, workshops on certain topics, etc. We will also be working on a new Facebook platform to make it easier for you all to connect, share information, etc. 

Barbara, Lindy, Theresa and Chris will be going to Emerging Women Live in Denver, 5-8 October this year.  The founder of Emerging Women, Chantal Pierrat, has reached out to Theresa to link up with worldwomen.  Together we will continue to weave the worldwide web. 

At worldwomen17 we learnt the difference between being an activist and an activator, which was quite an eye opener!

Some of us come from an "activist" background: fighting AGAINST different systems that either harm the environment or interfere with our dreams of a just world. Being an activist consumes quite a lot of energy, can get us in trouble with the side we are opposing and invokes negative emotions like anger, rage, entitlement etc.

On the other side, as activators we do something FOR ourselves, FOR the world and FOR our communities. We do something to encourage other people to join our dreams and we relentlessly work FOR our bigger hunger.  This involves us thinking about what we want FOR ourselves. Caring about how we feel in certain situations and whether we would like to live in a world as it presents it to us at the moment. If we do not like it, we can start to do something small for the betterment any given moment. We improve our self-worth as we can see change we initiate or contribute towards.  It is not about changing the world in one go ... but changing your attitude towards things.  Never ever feel alone and isolated.  Reach out and trust that support is there. 

We hope we have inspired you to become an activator, we would love to hear stories of what has changed for you since worldwomen17 and what changes you have been able to make!

All the best - Nā mātou

Barbara Gabler, Theresa Gattung, Chris Woodwiss, Lindy Nelson