Events on Day 3: Theme - Women and Poverty Eradication

Nasra Hassan
The first speaker on Tuesday morning was unexpectedly forced to cancel her presentation due to a family crisis. Nasra Hassan, Director of the UN Information Service, is a spokesperson on drugs and crime. Other contributors spoke for longer and there was extra time for delegates to as questions.

In October 2006 the International Development Research Council (IDRC) announced the appointment of Dr Rawwida Baksh as Programme Leader for the Women's Rights and Citizenship (WRC) programme.

The IDRC is a public corporation created by the Parliament of Canada in 1970 to support researchers in developing countries to solve critical development problems and build healthier, more equitable and prosperous societies. IDRC is based in Ottawa with regional offices in Cario, Dakar, Delhi, Montevideo, Nairobi and Singapore.

Dr Baksh has a PhD in Socio-historical Linguistics from the University of the West Indies, as well as Masters Degrees in Gender and Development from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, and in International Relations from the London School of Economics.

Before joining the IDRC, Dr Baksh was Head of the Gender Section at the Commonwealth Secretariat, where she developed  the Gender Management System (GMS) as the Commonwealth's approach to mainstreaming gender equality in government, civil society and other sectors. She also initiated the Secretariat's programme on Gender, Democracy, Peace and Conflict, and published books in this area on Gender Mainstreaming in Conflict Transformation: Building Sustainable Peace; and Women and Men in Partnership for Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Sierra Leone.

Dr Baksh led the development of the Commonwealth Plan of Action for Gender Equality 2005-2015, which was agreed by the Seventh Commonwealth Women's Affairs Meeting in June 2004, presented to the Beijing+10 Review held at the UN during the 49th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women in March 2005, and endorsed by Commonwealth Heads of Government at their Summit in November 2005.

Award-winning television journalist Eve Richings has travelled around the world covering issues affecting the lives of women and children.

In Afghanistan, it was how females lived under Taliban rule; the plight of 80.000 refugees living in unbelievable squalor in the Jalozai refugee camp; and how children, after so many years of war, were being taught how to play - because they'd never learnt how to.

In Uganda, it was the scandal of how 25,000 children had been kidnapped to fight for the Lord's Resistance Army, and ordered to kill their own parents, brothers and sisters as their initiation.

In Mexico, she reported on how poverty drove children to prostitute themselves, and then blot out their misery with drugs and solvents.

In Gabon and Benin, the story was child trafficking.  The tragedy of how parents, unable to feed their children, handed a boy or girl over to someone promising them a better life, only for them to be sold into slavery.

In Azad Kashmir, she reported on the rescue of a forced marriage victim, one of 250-300 British nationals being recued every year by a team of Foreign Office diplomats around the world.

In Zambia, she investigated how baby girls were being raped by men believing they'd be cured of AIDS; and the HIV+ mothers teaching other women how to avoid infecting their babies.

Eve was a newspaper reporter for 10 years before joining Sky News, where she worked for 17.5 years, mainly on special assignment. She is now a freelance reporter, working on documentary projects.

The Report from the Federation of Great Britain and Ireland by President Hilary-Kay Young and the Report from the Federation of South West Pacific by President Lorna Mead followed the presentations by Dr Rawwida Baksh and Eve Richings.

Project Independence, Women Survivors of War - Closing Report 

Dawn Marie Lemonds and Zainab Salbi with Janet Stevens Donahue

This was a special invitation to members of the Chat Line from Kate Moore. For Chat Liners, former Chat Liners and their supporters this Lunch was a 'must'.

Delegates to Convention were invited to join a magical mystery tour on the Tuesday evening. Leaving the Convention Centre around 1700 hours by bus they were taken to venues across southern Scotland, where local Soroptimists waited to greet them with Scottish Hospitality - food, entertainment and, of course, fun and friendship. This was a great opportunity to meet each other in small groups and in an informal setting -  the Scottish Soroptimists were wonderful hostesses and delegates had a true insight into Scottish hospitality.