On Saturday, 10th
May 2011, SI Programme Director Reilly Dempsey took part in a one
day International Development Course (ICD) held at Cambridge
University. The course is aimed at students interested in
learning more about international development and/or working in the sector in the future.
IDCs allow development professionals to distil the crucial
issues people should be aware of to be a global citizen and, especially, before
participating in development interventions themselves.
Reilly was privileged to be invited to participate in two
events – a careers panel for students interested in pursuing a career in
international development and a one hour lecture/workshop solely on her work with
SI.
She was joined on the careers panel by Audrey Skervin from
the Methodist Relief and Development Fund.
Audrey is responsible for individual fundraising, producing resources
for existing supporters, building the volunteer network and raising the charity’s
media profile. Before joining MRDF, Audrey worked for prominent news channels
in the UK. Audrey has worked as a local media contact
for WaterAid, a youth worker for Oasis Trust and mentored a young person
leaving the care system. Audrey has also spent time working with street
children in Brazil
and rural communities in Ghana.
The third panellist was Giselle Weybrecht,
author if “The Sustainable MBA: The Manager’s Guide to Green Business”. Giselle is an independent Consultant and an
expert in business and sustainability issues. Prior to this she worked for the
United Nations internationally in sustainable development. Today she works with
the UN, government, universities, NGOs, business and entrepreneurs in
sustainability and writes for a variety of publications including the Economist
and Forbes. Giselle was chosen as a London Leader for 2011, working with the
City of London to make the capital
a more sustainable city. The three
together shared their career paths and gave advice and guidance to the
students.
Reilly’s lecture started with an interactive exercise called
The Power Walk, which introduces key aspects of human rights and disparities
across the socio-economic spectrum. She
then talked in depth about the far reaching work of SI and how, through action, advocacy, and
awareness, Soroptimists strive to ensure the protection and fulfilment of human
rights for women and girls around the world.
Here is an excerpt from her presentation:
"SI believes that every woman and girl deserves an equal
chance in life. Our work, primarily
through local level programme and global level advocacy, focuses on identifying
women and girls who are unable to achieve their full potential due to social,
economic, political, and contextual factors, such as those that we saw in the
power walk exercise earlier in this session.
We then draw upon both the local knowledge from Soroptimist members
around the world and the international knowledge we gain through our global
network to design the best possible projects to serve women and girls in need. SI is a ‘global voice for women’ – in that we
listen to the voices of women and girls who, for whatever reason, are silenced,
and we ensure that those voices are then heard in ways that will affect change.
All of our projects are designed according to local needs,
taking into account cultural sensitivities, and always involving the local
women and girls. Members have the
opportunity to draw from our global knowledge base, learning from other
Soroptimist projects around the world and from our work at the UN. New and innovative practices are constantly
emerging, and SI acts to channel this information out to our members around the
world.
In order for gender stereotypes to be broken we also work
within communities, including working with men, boys, and male community
leaders, to create a more enabling and gender equitable environment. We also work with individual women and girls
to ensure that they are empowered to take on new roles, in other words, that
they have the skills and confidence to make gender equality work. In this way, we can support women and girls
as they strive towards realising their potentials and their rights through a
holistic programme of development."
Reilly then engaged in a lively question and answer with the
students.
For more information, please visit http://www.srcf.ucam.org/camidc/?q=node/1.