Saturday, 22 May 2010 - Final day of conference

The morning began with a breakfast meeting with the Recommendations Committee who met to put together all the recommendations that had come from each of the delegations either in their reports or separately.

The Cook Islands put forward several recommendations including: the Council actioning the sending of letters to the USA and Tonga regarding the signing of the CEDAW convention; the formalization of a Peace Statement for PPSEAWA; some simplification and clarification of the PPSEAWA by laws; and widening voting privileges to Heads of Missions with regards to the choice of venue for the next conference; and finally to allow proxy votes at elections. A list of recommendations was produced to be presented to the new Council.

The morning session was entitled “Global Challenges for Women”. Speakers were local leaders who presented on: Violence against women and children by the former State Minister for Women Empowerment who confirmed a lack of true stats as to the reality of the problem because women victims are reluctant to inform authorities about any cases of violence, the root of the problem lies in the lack of education and poverty, the government works together with NGOs to spread the load of responsibility and concern; Women empowerment in rural areas (problems and empowerment): misconception of women’s role (restricting access to opportunities to education, etc), misuse of religious scripts, misuse of cultural values; horticulture and agriculture training programs offered to enable women to raise levels of knowledge and skills through contributing to food production for the family; trafficking of women and children from UN stats and the work that Dr Karim (a second generation PPSEAWA member) had done in different countries with regards to trafficking and exploitation (for sex, labour, child brides, etc); and Women entrepreneurship (women become entrepreneurs by economic pressure and a passion for a particular business area. Noni works for a company which was started by her grandmother. Wisdom from her grandmother: never whine, respect others, always see problems as opps; if we expect our employees and drivers to do something, we must role model and look after them. “Rule with silk gloved iron hands”: feminine values have shaped the way she runs her company – pay attention to detail, perserverance, multitasking, genuine motherly care: Personal challenges: structures (legal rights, cultural restraints), education, capital, markets, choice of business that can give flexibility of time and place: balancing three balls (professional, personal and family) at the same time – working from home or perhaps dropping one of the balls (most times it’s the personal one – perhaps a hobby that she can do at home). Nowadays, work also offers women privileges when they have qualifications and are empowered. However the future for our daughters may not be as easy. Affirmative action is get less and less so that women will have to compete as equals. We therefore need to set up support structures; create opportunities for young women. What is important is that we have to be the role models for the future women entrepreneurship.

During the question time, one of the delegates focused us all back to the theme of the conference “Fostering Peace…” and how the conference had not addressed Peace as much as it could have done.

The third business session included the adoption of resolutions and recommendations; as well as the election of the new International President and of the International Council.

President: Theresa Hintzke (seen here farewelling the Indonesian organisers); Vice Presidents: Fiji, Indonesia; Secretary: Taina Woodward (USA); Treasurer : Ulrike (Hawaii); Directors: Taiwan, Samoa, New Zealand, and ?
Contact details for Tiahuia Abraham (NZ National Pres) tia.abraham@xtra.co.nz

Thanks to everyone for allowing us to attend this conference. We enjoyed it and believe we contributed positively, raising the profile of the Cook Islands within the organisation itself. We should plan more positively to send representatives to Taiwan (the mid-term conference) and to Fiji in three years time. Unfortunately we didn’t come away from this conference with a goal for the next three years but no doubt this will be communicated to us by the new Council in the near future.

Meitaki maata. Maureen & Alexis.