Empower.

International Women's Day, March 8

Women's Ministries and ADRA UK collaborate on a 60-minute educational program focusing on gender parity.

Trans-European Division (TED)

[United Kingdom] ADRA-UK launched its first series of Lunchtime Talks on International Women's Day (Thursday, March 8, 2018) in collaboration with the British Union Conference Women's Ministries department. Ain't I a Woman was a 60-minute educational program focusing on gender parity, led and attended by members of staff from Adventist Development and Relief Agency of the United Kingdom (ADRA-UK), the British Union Conference (BUC) and the Adventist Discovery Centre (ADC).

Gender equality is one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) set by the United Nations 'to address a broad range of social and economic development issues'. As a humanitarian agency, ADRA-UK's work with women focuses on literacy programmes, maternal health, clean water and sanitation, and food security in many countries. The video clip that opened the session highlighted the importance of the work of the agency in helping to close the gender gap in many developing countries and focused on the enormous strides that these women have taken because of ADRA's initiatives and partnerships. The session was opened by Stha Nyamusara, Accountant for ADRA-UK, who gave an overview of the reason for International Women's Day and the rationale for the workshop.

Bearing in mind the latest research, the Gender Gap Report published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), the short quiz that followed highlighted the fact that even in developed countries, there are still major inequalities to women. The smooth transition from the statistics to the Gender Bias game was delivered by Desiré Lewis, Team Assistant, who facilitated three questions for small group discussions.

And the final part of the session was a dramatic monologue written and performed by Sharon Platt-McDonald entitled, 'Eve's Plight' based on the first woman that God created. This tied together not only the challenges that women face both in the developing and developed world, but the struggles that are faced even by woman of faith in their daily lives. The intensity of the narrative was made even more powerful by the costume and the props that she used as she quoted from Joshua 1:9 urging the attendees to be 'strong and very courageous' in the face of hardships, disappointments and trials.

"I am happy that the team were able to run this special workshop on International Women's Day," said Pastor Bert Smit, CEO of ADRA-UK, "as it not only highlights the development work with women, but its huge impact on the lives of children as well."

Last year, we were able to assist over 200,000 women to improve their lives both overseas and in the UK and pray for the blessing of God so that we can help even more achieve greater gender parity in 2018.

Written by Cathy Boldeau

Source: British Union Conference News