By Max Hill
On July 24, 2014, the Permanent Mission of Grenada and the organization African Women for Good Governance held a conference at the UN titled “Women in Power Making a Global Difference”. The conference included statements from Ambassador Denis G. Antoine, Permanent Representative of Grenada to the UN, Ambassador Sire Conde, President of African Women for Good Governance as well as others from places of influence for women around the world.
In his opening statements, Ambassador Antoine told of the strides that women have made in Grenada, including that 33% of Grenada’s parliamentary elected officials are women. Ambassador Conde followed with her statement, laying more of the groundwork for the conference saying, “We are women from all over, working together to build the bridge to show kids what they can do to build a better life and empower women.”
The opening statements were followed by remarks from people such as Dr. Stephanie Aisha Steplight Johnson, speaking on “Understanding good governance”. Dr. Johnson asserted that if you educate a girl, you educate a nation, and from this you can help bring good governance.
“Good governance,” said Johnson “is having policies that assure that people have a quality of life that includes, good education, health care, protection.” She continued by saying that in order to have good governance you must first have a system that utilizes conflict-minimizing skills such as diplomacy and transparency.
This conference came the day before this month’s Orange Day. Orange Day falls on the 25th day of each month. This campaign by UNiTE calls for people to wear orange on the 25th day of every month in order to raise awareness to end violence against women and girls around the world. This orange day focuses on violence against women in the informal economy. Many women around the world work in unregulated workplaces and have to suffer from violence, harassment and bullying. The informal working environments often do not include zero-tolerance policies to protect women and girls from these conditions, and many most likely do not include a way for women and girls to report any sort of violence or harassment to which they are subjected.
Join us today and the 25th of each month and raise awareness to end violence against women and girls.