Last week I had the opportunity to go and visit one of our Encore Programmes in action. The group of women were kind enough to allow us to go along and watch and take photos for new brochures and posters.
I found myself really moved by this experience. We did floor exercises with the 13 participating women, then we listened to their guest speaker Mary Wakefield a lymphodaema expert and an extremely knowledgeable one. Mary referred often to the cancer experience not being the soul focus of the women’s lives - there was much to their life than their breast cancer.
The pool session was fantastic. It’s a big enough ask getting a lot of women into their swimsuits, but these women were contending with having no hair, no breasts, one breast, scarring. Here they were though, in their suits, in the pool, doing exercises.
The supportiveness of each other in what only four weeks earlier had been a group of strangers was very touching.
What was most inspiring for me though was the laughs they were having together. Out of adversity was positivity in being together.
Our Encore Coordinators are special people and this is a programme the YWCA is rightly very proud of.
YWCA Auckland President Sina Wendt Moore became the Co-President of YWCA Aotearoa/New Zealand at the National AGM held in Wellington in March.
Sina had been the YWCA Auckland President since the 2011 AGM, however the commitment required to the YWCA Aotearoa/New Zealand meant she relinquished her Auckland position to support the movement at the national level.
Current Vice-President Kate Sutton was elected unopposed as President YWCA Auckland until the AGM in October and was also elected to the YWCA National Board.
Auckland Board Member Annette Sharp has also joined the National Board as Treasurer and will continue her role on the YWCA Auckland board until her term finishes in October.
The Auckland board and the board of Aotearoa/New Zealand along with the other YWCA Member Associations in New Zealand are setting in place a strategic frame to build more momentum around their work in leadership development for young women, such as the Future Leaders Mentoring Programme which has been running in Auckland for 10 years.
Current Auckland YWCA board members are:
Chelsea Bridgman
Vanessa Ceelen
Nive Sharat Chandran
Anne Fitisemanu
Angela Lim (Scholarship Recipient)
Adrienne Roberts (Treasurer)
Annette Sharp
Kate Sutton (President)
Andrijana Trajanovska
For any enquiries regarding the YWCA please contact:
This is a bit bleak reading. NZ is lagging sadly behind, which affects the whole country. Efforts by the Institute of Directors, Global Women, and the EEO Trust will hopefully start to bear some results over the next few years as we see more and more women, more multi-cultural boards and more new faces appearing on both private and public sector boards.
The YWCA Auckland, once the champion of self-defence classes for women in Auckland now finds itself unable to locate one the regional agencies to help us deliver a programme for a group of our Future Leaders.
There are agencies that apparently teach self-defence, but none of them return phone calls or answer their phones, even those which are government funded.
An interesting state of affairs and obviously suggests the YWCA needs to start these programmes again for women, especially young women!
“The National Council of Women of New Zealand (NCWNZ) believes that mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse is essential to reducing New Zealand’s child abuse rate,” NCWNZ President Elizabeth Bang said today.
Elizabeth Bang was commenting on proposals contained in the Social Development Ministry’s Green Paper on Vulnerable Children, which include mandatory reporting of child abuse.
“The statistics tell us that around 15 percent of children in New Zealand are born at risk of abuse. It’s an unacceptably high rate which puts us among the worst in the world.
“NCWNZ has long advocated mandatory reporting of child abuse. There needs to be greater coordination between professionals - teachers, health professionals and welfare agencies - who may suspect child abuse.
“Friends and neighbours, as well as the wider family, also have a responsibility to speak up when things don’t seem right. It is no longer acceptable to hide behind excuses such as, “It’s not my job” or “It’s not my business.” It is everyone’s business to keep our children safe and ensure they receive the care and protection that is every child’s right,” Elizabeth Bang said.
NCWNZ advocates training in child protection, to ensure professionals such as teachers, nurses, and carers recognise the telltale signs and know what to do.
“Increased support for parents, including parent education, will also assist in improving the quality of parenting, and help reduce the incidence of abuse. Our children are our future and investment in their care is non-negotiable,” concluded Elizabeth Bang.
For more information contact:
Elizabeth Bang, President, National Council of Women NZ
We were extremely privileged to have Joyce Mungherera - General Secretary of YWCA Uganda (retired) visit the YWCA Auckland office with her husband Seth and daughter Dr Jennifer Mungherera (Member - YWCA Auckland).
Joyce did incredible work with the YWCA in Uganda, spanning over 40 years. Her grass roots and rural projects did much to empower women in Uganda and apparently many politicians credit their political careers to the starts they made with the YWCA. Joyce has also won a major international award for her work with the World Hunger Project, an awa.
One of the special things about the YWCA is the international family aspect and we get to meet women like Joyce.
The YWCA in Uganda has 1.5 million members!
Thank you for visiting us and making the connection. And now that Joyce knows her daughter Jennifer doesn’t live too far away from us, we know Jennifer will be ‘encouraged’ to become a part of the YWCA Auckland family.
