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Thursday 28th August 2008
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You are here: Homepage >> Community Info >> International Womens Day
Follow this link to: View photos of IWD 2006
This year's event is due to take place on March 7th: IWD 2007
Several years ago Stokes & Patchway Women's Network organised events
for International Women's Day. The Network no longer exists and Bradley Stoke
Town Council, with a female Mayor, was keen to explore the opportunities for
putting on an event this year. Southern Brooks Community Partnership (SBCP)
were invited to work with them
International Women's Day (8th March) is an occasion marked by women's groups
around the world. It's a day when women on all continents, often divided by
national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political
differences, come together to celebrate their Day, they can look back to a
tradition that represents at least nine decades of struggle for equality, justice,
peace and development. The idea of an International Women's Day first arose
at the turn of the century which in the industrialized work was a period of
expansion and turbulence, booming population growth and radical ideologies.
Julie Snelling set up a meeting, inviting people representing a wide range of organisations and South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) departments. Attendees at the initial meeting included the Equalities Officer for SGC, the library service, Rotary, Bradley Stoke Town Council (BSTC), Bradley Stoke Young Mums Group, (through Ruth Cornish or Charlie Croome), South Gloucestershire Asian Project (SGAP) and a local resident. Community Development and the PCT sent apologies. We agreed to hold the event in the week and that the theme would be “Women and Wellbeing”. The target audience was women across South Gloucestershire but we agreed that the focus would be Bradley Stoke and the neighbouring communities. We agreed to run a crèche, to make the event accessible to women with children
A small working group emerged and regular attendees were the Women's Institute, the Library Service, SGAP, SBCP and Bradley Stoke Town Council. Meetings were chaired by SBCP while administration was undertaken by the town council. This was an effective way of working and sharing the tasks.
Much of the communication was undertaken by e-mail, with people taking responsibility for their areas of interest. The Citizens Advice Bureau run a regular session in the Jubilee Centre on a Wednesday and they agreed that this would be for women only. As the event drew nearer, regular phone calls were received from a range of groups wanting to have display stalls, including Walking for Health, Smoking Cessation, Flexible Learning Partners and the WI.
Publicity was circulated widely, with good coverage by the local press, Bradley Stoke Matters, on websites and in newsletters and through the library.
Our aim was to provide a wide range of activities and we also wanted it to be a celebration of and for women. One of the benefits of holding it at the Jubilee Centre is that everyone would be in one space, and we were keen to have a workshop towards the end of the event for women to be able to talk about the local groups that they were involved in and to identify any gaps in services. We hoped to run a food workshop in the morning that would produce the food for lunch. Unfortunately this proved impossible due to Health & Safety legislation and so lunch was provided by a local caterer
Councillor Sue Hope was invited to facilitate the workshop discussion, and to jointly open the event with Bradley Stoke Mayor, Councillor Sandra Hobson.
The day dawned wild and wet and we were concerned that this would affect numbers. How wrong could we be! Over 300 women attended, from all over South Gloucestershire. We were pleased to welcome members of the Siblands RAC in Thornbury. It became a truly multi-cultural event, with comments including how good it was to spend time with other women. The fact that it was a completely women only event enabled Muslim women to attend and take a full part.
We planned the event as open access, only people needing crèche places were asked to book. This worked well, with 7 crèche workers enabling most women who wanted to use the crèche the chance to. Some women chose to keep their children with them, and they enjoyed the activities.
The event almost became a victim of its own success, and unfortunately several
people were disappointed not to be able to have treatments. Lunch was something
of an experience, with long queues and only tomatoes left for
those at the end!
More activity providers! More lunch! More space!