International Women’s Day is an annual event celebrated globally on the 08th March, to acknowledge and celebrate the significant contribution of all women in the world in every development.
Under the Theme “Women in Leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 World” the Ministry of Women Community and Social Development is celebrating International Women’s Day this year with a forum in Savaii.
This will complement the Nation Wide Ending Violence Awareness program led by MWCSD already underway which focuses on violence against women and girls & the linkage to Sexual Reproductive Health Rights, violence against children, People living with Disabilities and all other vulnerable groups
IWD 2021 focusses a significant emphasis on the role of Village Women Committees in maintaining social stability in the communities.
The objectives for this program are:
- To strengthen the role of Women’s Committees in maintaining social stability of communities in response to Covid 19 impacts
- To recognize the main challenges faced by women as barriers to gender equality and claiming leadership roles – Gender Based Violence and Disabilities.
- To raise more awareness on gender based violence affecting women and girls, with more emphasis on women living with disabilities as being more vulnerable to GBV during times of crisis.
The celebration program will include speeches from women community and faith based organization leaders in the hope to foster discussions about women in leadership, ending violence against women, and achieving gender equality in a Covid impacted world.
In addition, there will also be performances provided by selected Koimiti a Tina to further articulate the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day which has been shortened to ‘Choose to Challenge’ or hashtagged – #ChooseToChallenge
The participants will be inclusive of representatives from Women’s committees from all villages in Savaii, women with disabilities, development partners, MWCSD staff as well as the key partners who are involved in the current roll out program such as the Faataua o le Ola, Ministry of Police, Ministry of Commerce Industry and Labour and Ministry of Justice and others.
The International Women’s Day commemoration this year is funded by UNWomen and UNFPA through the Spotlight Initiative program.
