29th YWCA World Council: Young Women Transforming Power Structures

I recently had the incredible opportunity to join the Nancy Atkinson, CEO of the YWCA Contra Costa/Sacramento to attend the 29th YWCA World Council in South Africa. This event happens every four years, and it enables YWCA leaders from around the world to gather and recommit to the YWCA’s powerful mission, while sharing lessons and stories from each other.

The 29th Council meeting focused on “Women Transform-ing Power Structures”, saw representatives from 70 coun-tries, seeking to empower women and strengthening the movement of young leaders. Indeed, the event reflected the true diversity of the YWCA – women from all back-grounds – as young as 15 and as mature as 88 and of vari-ous ethnicity/nationality from the numerous countries – as colorful as the picture seen below.

As the event concluded, and I reflect on the lessons learned and the experience, I realized in many ways we are so much similar than different. Despite the geograph-ical distances of the various YWCAs around the world, though women and girls may face different experiences, there are uncanny similarities in the issues we face – do-mestic violence, poverty, reproductive health, HIV/AIDS to mention a few. The experience provided a window into how the YWCA movement effects change through collabo-ration – over 70 nations meeting to make decisions on pol-icy, constitution, strategic direction and funding. Through-out the week-long conference, attendees benefitted from mutual learning through voting and focus sessions, shared meals and cultural activities. The days were sometimes long, as discussions went pass 7:00pm; however, instead of being overwhelmed, the event left me inspired as I saw the ability of the mission to “transform power structures” through the incredible harmony and unity of YWCA mis-sions around the world.