March 2016 President’s Letter
Equal rights and a life free of violence is NOT a women’s issue; it is a societal issue that has to be solved by women and men together.
Maria Jose Landeira Oestergaard
National Women’s History Month can trace its roots back to March 8, 1857, when women from New York City factories staged a protest over working conditions. International Women’s Day was first observed in 1909, but it wasn’t until 1981 that Congress established National Women’s History Week to be commemorated the second week of March. In 1987, Congress expanded the week to a month.
On September 15, 2015, through the UN, world leaders adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This Agenda includes a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and tackle climate change by 2030. Goal No. 5 is Gender Equality: To achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Gender equality is crucial to accelerating sustainable development because equality is not only a basic human right, but it also has a multiplier effect across all other development areas. Zonta has embraced Goal No. 5.
Did you all have a chance to read Zonta International President Maria Jose Landeira Oestergaard’s March 8th message “ENVISION EQUALITY – TAKE ACTION NOW!” which fits nicely with Sustainable Development Goal No. 5. President Oestergaard emphasized how through advocacy we “CAN and WILL make lasting change . . . to achieve a world where women’s rights are recognized and respected as human rights, where women have access to all resources and are represented in decision making positions on equal basis with men, where no woman lives in fear of violence.”
Since our club was formed in 1986, our members have worked locally to serve the metro Denver community through service, fundraising, and now advocating for the rights of women, and internationally through our contribution of funds to help with ZI’s service projects. We have worked tirelessly year after year to achieve Zonta’s goal of improving the status of women!
At the March 25th meeting we will be reviewing the Service Committee’s proposed and recommended fund distribution to the many agencies we support. Through this review, I hope we are reminded of all the good we send out into the community through this process. We will also have a speaker: DoraLee Larson, the Executive Director of the Denver Metro Domestic Violence Fatality Review committee. DoraLee has told me that she will proselytize to almost anyone about domestic violence, fatalities and how to help prevent this social scourge. So, it should be an interesting meeting!
Hope to see you all there!
Carol