Powerful Women: Shifting The Status Quo
Friday, March 27, 2009
Session Description
An emerging phenomenon in parts of the developing world is that of women holding power in political structures, including structures previously seen as being the preserve of men. Women also navigate traditional power structures to bring to the fore the economic interests and societal rights of women. Are there robust and sustainable models emerging which can illuminate political, legal and economic power structures? Women share how they brought vitality and hope to their communities.
Time & Location
Time:
10:45 - 12:15, Friday, March 27, 2009
BST
Speakers
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Speaker
Board Member, Beijing Cultural Development Centre for Rural Women
Wu Qing had been teaching English from 1960-2000 at Beijing Foreign Studies University. She won many awards for her excellent teaching. Since the mid 1980s, she has been actively promoting human rights and women’s rights. She is on many national and international women NGO boards. She is serving her seventh term as a People’s Deputy to the Haidian People’s Congress, democratically elected. She is the first Deputy to use the Chinese Constitution, the first to meet with constituents on Tuesday afternoon and the first to report her work. She upholds democracy, rule of law, oversight and transparency, regarded as “Deputy with the Constitution” by Chinese media. She won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service in 2001 and is a Social Entrepreneur nominated by the Schwab Foundation Network of 2003.
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Speaker
Dr. Sakena Yacoobi is the President & Executive Director of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL), an organization she founded in 1995 in response to the lack of education and health care that the Afghan people faced after decades of war and strife. Dr. Yacoobi is also the President & Executive Director of Sakena Fund formerly known as Creating Hope International (CHI).
Dr. Yacoobi has established 352 Learning Centers, four schools, a hospital, and a radio/ TV station in Afghanistan and is the recipient of six honorary doctorates including from Princeton University. Each year, Dr. Yacoobi speaks at numerous events, conferences and at institutions such as the UN, Stanford University and Oxford University. Dr. Yacoobi particularly enjoys engaging with youth at schools, inspiring them to be globally minded citizens. Most recently in 2022 in response to the devastating fall of the nation, after the Taliban took over; Girls once again banned from schools, Dr. Yacoobi’s AIL staff with her
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Speaker
Co-Founder/Editorial Director TEDWomen; Managing Partner, Connected Women Leaders, Pat Mitchell Media
Throughout her career as an award-winning journalist, producer and media executive, Pat Mitchell broke new ground for women as the first woman President of PBS and of CNN Productions. Today, Pat is a co-founder, host and curator for TEDWomen and co-founder and managing partner of ConnectedWomenLeaders, a cohort of global women leaders, across generations and geography, who are launching a global, women-led campaign for climate justice titled Project Dandelion. She is Chair Emeritus of the Sundance Institute
and just received the Vanguard Award for philanthropy. She also serves on the board of The Skoll Foundation, Participant Media, The Woodruff Arts Center, and the VDAY movement to end violence; she’s also a member of CARE’s Global Advisory Council and Chair Emeritus of the Women’s Media Center which established an annual award in her name. In her memoir, “Becoming a Dangerous Woman,” Mitchell shares her journey as a frontline advocate for a just, equitable and sustainable world.
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Speaker
Lecturer of Law, University of Pretoria
Lungowe Matakala is a Zambian citizen teaching at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. Chishinga holds an LLB, an LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa; and is soon to submit a PhD thesis to the University of Cambridge. Chishinga’s research focuses on the inheritance rights of widows and orphans in Zambia; and how they are disinherited through the application of African customary laws that discriminate. Chishinga is also the Founder and coordinator of EPAHR (Education Prisoners about Human Rights), a community service project that teaches prisoners’rights at the Pretoria Local Correctional Services.
