Womens as Leaders content
Successes of Women as Leaders of Change
The conference "Successes of Women as Leaders of Change" held in Manama, Bahrain March 26 – 28, 2006 brought together 120 participants from 16 Arab states to discuss many important issues facing Arab women and their participation in the comprehensive development of the Arab world. Specifically, they discussed women as leaders of change in family and society, as well as women as leaders of change on the political and economic levels. The conference was hosted by the Bahraini Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US State Department - the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), under the honorable patronage of the Supreme Council for Women, with support from the American Bar Association.
“Women’s empowerment is not a new issue,” said Erin Walsh, Senior Advisor in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. “Women have been working on these issues in the trenches for many years.”
The participants at the conference discussed these issues in depth. The first day was dedicated to the presentation of examples and models of collective women's movements that have had country wide impact in all of these fields. The Moroccan women's experience in codifying the personal status law was presented, as well as the Kuwaiti women's experience in achieving women's suffrage, in addition to the Saudi women's experience of being elected to the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The Bahraini, Emirates, and Tunisian women's experience in the economic sphere were also presented.
The second day was dedicated to workshops on skills and strategies for taking these successes to the next level. Three different training workshops were organized on skills to consolidate success by specialized trainers with vast experience in the field of coalition building, communication skills, and use of the media and negotiation skills. Workshops were also organized to discuss strategies through which additional successes can be achieved in the fields of family and society and economic and political activism.