| March, 2019
“… [T]HE TRUE EXCHANGE OF IDEAS AND ACCEPTANCE OF OTHER WAYS OF THINKING COME ABOUT THROUGH THIS DYNAMIC: YOU MAKE FRIENDS, BUILD TRUST, THEN INFLUENCE EACH OTHER.”
– KLAUS WALLNER
I am again trying to connect with my friends, families, neighbors, former colleague and former global voices.
I have spent the last 10 days from early morn till eve at the UN CSW meetings. My hopes for a global world led by networks of women from grassroots, urban, regional and global economies and cultures is now…
9000 people were registered for these meetings. In the workshops I attended, I observed only a few “older” folks and a sprinkling of male attendees. The discussions and the optimism of the panelists and attendees with whom I chatted have given me new insights about the future.
The younger networks of women are connecting country by country and among diverse cultures, mainly sharing knowledge with each other more openly than did our generation. They all use the new technology and willing to help explain new uses without hesitation. From what I observed, they are more ‘activists’ than they are ‘scholars.’ Curiously, they rarely use that elitist word “experts.” (My hated word for highly skilled and knowledgeable people.)
Since 1975, I have attended all the UN International Women’s meetings and all but 2 annual CSW meetings. I found this year unique. While most of the issues up for discussion are the same since ’75, they are more complex and are being openly shared among panels of women lawyers, educators, doctors and feminists. But now, global business and financial institutions are all building country networks. It is awesome to hear how broad and deep the understanding of current local and global research data, laws and resolutions have become and plans about what needs to be done to assure women are at the design table.
The fact that so many women have now experienced the energy and challenge of being global citizens the future is already here.
The current leadership of our world governments, businesses, and media just has to move out of the way… My new favorite quote: “EVIL IS WHEN GOOD PEOPLE DO NOTHING”
 It is hard to believe that next week we will be celebrating WWB’s 40th Anniversary. We did not know each other but we trusted that taking a risk together to help low-income women could make the economies more diverse and the world safer.
Michaela Walsh
New York
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