International Women's Day breakfast held at IPJ

By Davina Coady
Feature Editor
The Vista

March 13, 2008

March 8 is a day for women. Since 1975, it has been known as International Women’s Day, a day when women can come together and discuss important issues such as women’s education, violence against women and women’s equality.

For the fourth year, the Institute for Peace and Justice held the International Women’s Day Celebration Breakfast on Friday, March 7.

The main focus of the breakfast was to discuss possible options for funding future projects promoting gender equity. Speakers also talked about their recent attendance at the Commission on the Status of Women.

“Things have gone from bad to worse with this,” said Dee Aker, deputy director of IPJ, in reference to sexual violence against women.

The CSW is a woman’s group founded back in 1946 with the goal of promoting advancement of women. They tackle issues such as poverty, young women’s education and infant and maternal mortality. This year the conference was also concerned about money, especially how and where they are going to get it.

As suggested by Erika Lopez, Women Peacemakers program officer, one source of funding could be the American government. Spending more than $1.5 billion per day, Lopez argued that maybe the annual budget could afford more than the $80 million currently given to UNIFEM, the United Nations Development Fund for Women.

Lopez also suggested that in order to continue fighting for women, they need to come up with more creative funding options. One novel financing practice is micro-financing. This is currently being done in the Amazon, where indigenous women make jewelry and bracelets for a type of income.

The breakfast also concentrated on international women’s issues that need to be addressed, something that also requires money.

“When you become educated and see the true tragedies and injustices that occur around the world every day towards women, I do not think there will be any hesitation in becoming an active member of promoting equality,” senior Kaitlin Gowan said.

Jane Crane, a graduate student of peace and justice studies, talked about how some women in Africa cannot legally own land. When their husbands die, usually from AIDS, they are chased out of the community with nowhere to go.

When foreign companies buy land in Africa, Crane hopes to set up a policy where the companies are legally required to give back some of it, allowing some of these homeless women to live off of the land.

Other peace and justice graduate students discussed the consequences of the distribution of small arms, the lack of women’s rights in Afghanistan and the popularity of sex trafficking.

Two young women from Our Lady of Peace High School and La Jolla High, Alex Reicher and Jessica Wilson, presented a poem about sexual violence against women. Their speech was in support and recognition of the foundation catinternational.org.

To close their presentation Wilson and Reicher said in unison, “We believe it is a human right to be free of sexual exploitation.”

A brief five-minute clip of the film “Leading the Way to Peace, IPJ Women Peacemakers Documentary” was also shown during the breakfast.

The short clip showed faces of mostly young women from numerous ethnicities, while others discussed peace efforts and gender equality. An ending quote that flashed across the screen summed up the overall theme of the breakfast: “The future is with women.”

The Vista, March 13, 2008

Original Article

Guests at the International Women's Day Breakfast