News A wonderful success! Thank you to all our guests, donors and supporters for making our third annual fundraising conference a marvelous success. Despite a chilly night, our 50 volunteers provided a warm welcome to our guests at École Polytechnique with a bonus spectacular evening view of Montréal from high up on the mountain. Cocktails and then time to bid!! This year's silent auction beat our previous records by raising close to $10,000. Thank you! Our amazing spokesperson, Ariane Émond, opened the evening showing pictures from our past projects in Burkina Faso, Zambia and Kenya. She then presented the video from WUSC which put us in the context of life in the refugee camp of Dadaab which, along with the refugee camp of Kakuma also in Kenya, will be receiving $100,000 from 60 million girls for remedial classes for 485 girls in primary school along with complete high school scholarships for 5 young women. Our second video was a travelog of the December 2007 visit by UNICEF Canada's Nigel Fisher, president and CEO, to Afghanistan. 60 million girls is supporting a $100,000 project to put in place community based schools in northern Afghanistan to enable 1,300 girls to attend classes as well as provide teacher training to 80 female teachers. |
Of course, the presence of our keynote speaker, Dr. Sima Samar, was the highlight of the evening. Greeted by a standing ovation, Dr. Samar provided her personal insight of the changes that Afghan society has seen over the last 35 years - from life before the Soviet occupation when she attended co-educational schools to today's situation 7 years after the fall of the Taliban regime. Dr. Samar underlined the absolute importance of education for girls in order for Afghanistan, or any other country, to develop peacefully. Women are 50% of the citizens of the world. We cannot hope to progress without developing their talent and potential. Because girls become mothers, girls education is essential to alleviating poverty, to improving health, to providing peaceful and stable societies. We are so honoured to have had Sima Samar as our keynote speaker this year. A most courageous and passionate woman. Human rights and women's rights in Afghanistan specifically have been at the core of everything she has done throughout her life. We are close to reaching our target of $200,000 for this year. With your help, we are sure to reach our goal within the next weeks. A challenge to us all!! My sincerest regards, Wanda Bedard Wanda Bedard receives the Montreal YWCA's 2008 Women of Distinction Award! An update on our 2007 project in the Masai Mara
Thanks again to everyone who made a donation to the 60 million girls' schooling project in Kenya. The $100,000 raised - and sent in mid-December 2007 - will directly fund the construction of eight furnished one-room school buildings and provide text books for the children of the Oloosyoi community in the Maasai Mara region of the country. The project will also include an on-site nursery, a water source and a latrine, so that girls' domestic responsibilities, such as caring for younger siblings and bringing water home, do not come at the expense of their education. |
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