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WIN corporate networking group meeting discusses livelihoods for displaced women
February 6, 2009 GENEVA
More than 30 people attended the half-day "Worlds of Women Coming Together" Corporate Networking Group meeting, hosted by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, general secretary of the World YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association), gave the keynote address. Other speakers gave presentations on empowering refugee women with disabilities and UNHCR's promotion of a wide range of women's livelihood projects around the world.
Ms. Gumbonzvanda described the war torn situation of her native Zimbabwe when she was born and said she had grown up with displacement and exclusion. Today, she said, her country was once more in crisis "and again my family and many women are displaced."
She revealed that from her years of experience and visiting camps in place like Sudan's Darfur region, she had found that protection and livelihoods were top priorities for displaced women. "It is so dehumanizing to live in a camp for displaced people for more than 20 years and . . . wait for a handout to send your kids to school, to look for medicine, to look for food," Gumbonzvanda noted, while adding: "That essence of being able to generate something in your own small way, to care, to nurture, is a profound human need."
UNHCR's Asia Bureau Deputy Director Pascal Moreau, outlined UNHCR’s commitment to helping empower displaced women through its Women Leading for Livelihoods (WLL) project, set up two years ago. The initiative supports projects such as a bakery in Serbia, a library and internet café in Morocco, a sewing workshop in Georgia and multi-storey market gardening in Kenya. Other speakers gave presentations on empowering refugee women with disabilities and also UNHCR’s promotion of a wide range of women's livelihood projects around the world.
The event concluded with the screening of a short and moving film to commemorate The International Day against Female Genital Mutilation (FMG).
The next WIN Corporate Networking Group meeting will be held in April.
Find out about the UNHCR initiative aimed at promoting the economic independence and empowerment of refugee and displaced women and girls around the world by visiting www.unhcr.org/wll
The World YWCA unites 25 million women and girls in 125 countries. To find out more about their work through a network of more than 100 national YWCA’s at www.worldywca.info
© UNHCR News Stories. Photographs © UNHCR/S.Hopper.
Photo 1: Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda gives the keynote address at the first Corporate Network Group meeting of the year,
hosted by the UN Refugee Agency in Geneva.
Photos 2 & 3: More than 30 people from corporate and humanitarian aid fields gather to discuss
the empowerment of displaced woman through livelihoods at the WIN Corporate Network Group meeting, Geneva February 6.
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