ACWW Associated Countrywomen of the World

I met 4 other members of Bucks' WIs when I attended the ACWW Conference in London on March 30th.We were not delegates but had seen the information in our newsletter and in WI Life.The audience was about 100 in number and the World President of ACWW gave a report on the work which had been done following the appeal to help the victims of the tsunami. The WI is associated with the ACWW and it is to this organisation that our Coins for Friendship are given. It is a worldwide organisation and many on the administrative board have come up through the WI. £200,000 was raised for the tsunami appeal which has now closed. The money went into income generation schemes mostly directed towards women.It was designed to be 100% practical and a rapid response.In India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia help was given to buy fishing tackle, sewing machines,agricultural tools and seeds, education and training, sanitation provision and the setting up of orphanages.There was a heartbreaking session on human trafficking in UK when we were told of the work being done by the WI with M&S and Amnesty International to combat the modern slave trade in sex and menial jobs.Remember we have a mandate to fight against this trade and we, as members must keep our eyes and ears open to try to check that it is not happening under our very noses. If it can occur in all the big cities and in the fields of Cornwall and East Anglia, what's to stop it being in Bucks?Then we heard about the state of women living in Zimbabwe. The statistics beggar belief:life expectancy for a woman was 65 ten years ago, now 34 years:4200 deaths in childbirth:1800% inflation and the HIV/Aids epidemic just grows and grows.The women cannot afford to buy sanitary protection even if it was available and they are beaten up when they protest.Do look at www.dignity!period.campaign.Bodyform is trying to get cutprice products into Zimbabwe but the local government imposed a tax of $32,000 on the first shipment so the firm is setting up a line through the trade unions against stiff opposition and corruption. The listeners on Friday were plotting to try to get an emergency resolution for the AGM in June.There was a brief report on the work done at United Nations where we have six women working to protect the rights of the girl-child and to improve the status of women across the world.Then we heard how the Ceredigion Federation of WIs had adopted a community of Khosa women in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, again helping in a practical way with health and education as well as providing chickens to kick start the economy.The final item was on global warming and its effect on Bangladesh, Indonesia and the drought-ridden areas of Africa.We came out into the gentle rain in an affluent area of London with fruit and vegetables in shop windows and commuters chatting on mobiles and I for one was full of indignation that so few people seemed to care about what was happening elsewhere in the world BUT also felt a sense of pride that the WI was trying to do something, was a vital part of ACWW and was able to act if it put its mind to it.I wish Bucks was more interested in ACWW. It is a while since we got together to provide water standpipes in Lesotho. Mind, we knitted teddies to buy bricks for schools in Burundi, didn't we ? So perhaps I am being a bit hard.