WOMEN IN THE WORLD

MAKING A WORLD FOR WOMEN

A seminar series on women’s rights, action, activism and empowerment

Baroness Joyce Gould, WWAFE Patron, chairs our 2016 series: Women in the World – Making a World for Women. WWAFE – Chair Dr Jocelynne A. Scutt, Cttee Members Ahlam Akram, Dinner Event Organiser, Ian Beckerton, Treasurer & Administrator, continue WWAFE founder Elizabeth Sidney’s work with fundraising dinners, participation in UN CSW, and our House of Lords annual seminar series.

In 1861 the English House of Lords said ‘knowledge is power’, then denied women the right to attend university, saying women were not ‘persons’ so did not qualify. In 1929 the Privy Council said that Canadian women, at least, were persons. In between times, women fought for the right to go to university, to gain an education, and to be respected for intellectual capacities and feats. Today’s women continue this tradition, exercising their brains through learning and taking that learning into action – to generate change for themselves and for women.

What ignites women’s intellect, generating them into action and promoting their actions and activism is special to individual women, special to women, and arises out of their existence in the world where women’s voices, activism, activities and action are multiple and multifaceted. How do women generate knowledge so that all can benefit and what steps – strides – do women take to ensure all are able to participate and to gain power through knowledge? How do we measure the activism and actions of women, and the energy women promote and contribute to women and the world? This seminar series explores these questions through the words and vision of women of backgrounds diverse and distinct, yet with the commonality of living as women in the world.

Monday 27 June – Cttee Rm 1 House of Lords

‘Generating Knowledge – Taking Strides for Women’

SPEAKERS:

 Jess Steele – Deputy Chief Executive & Active Social Entrepreneur, Local Community Activist & Entrepreneur in Deptford and Hastings, and nationally

 Hepzibah Egede – dual qualified lawyer and Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Buckingham 

Judy Larsen – Commonwealth Trust Scholar, Teacher, Principal, Researcher, Educational Trainer and Consultant in Australia and Internationally

Jess Steele has 25 years’ experience as a Local Community Activist and Entrepreneur in Deptford and Hastings and at national level as Deputy Chief Executive of the British Urban Regeneration Association and Director of Innovation at DTA/Locality, including leading the development and delivery of the national Community Organisers programme. An active social entrepreneur for 25 years, she has established community enterprises in publishing, heritage, tourism, childcare, financial management, workspace, and neighbourhood development. Her company, Jericho Road Solutions, provides coaching to neighbourhood groups and community businesses as well as working with government, funders, corporates and academics on national initiatives to make neighbourhood work easier. Building on her experience of saving Hastings Pier, Jess specialises in supporting ambitious projects by local people to rescue the most challenging of precious buildings. In 2016, Jess Steele was awarded an OBE for services to community assets in the UK.

Dr Eylem Atakav is Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the University of East Anglia, teaching courses on women and film; women, Islam and media; and Middle Eastern media. Author of Women and Turkish Cinema: Gender Politics, Cultural Identity and Representation (2012) and editor of Directory of World Cinema: Turkey (Intellect, 2013), her academic interests are on Middle Eastern film and television; representation of ‘honour’ crimes in the media: and violence and women’s cinema. She frequently writes on issues of gender and culture for Huffington Post (UK), has contributed to the House of Lords Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life report, and recently secured AHRC funding to co-lead a project on British Muslim Values. Leader of the Intercultural Communication Network for NAFSA: Association of International Educators, she is recipient of 2016 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Outstanding Pedagogical Achievement Award. Eylem Atakav is currently working on a documentary film, entitled Growing Up Married, which focuses on child brides recollecting memories as adults.

 Dr. Judy Larsen has extensive experience as Teacher, Principal, Researcher and Educational Trainer and Consultant in Australia and internationally. As a Commonwealth Relations Trust Scholar, she arrived in the United Kingdom almost 20 years ago from Australia to undertake her PhD at the University of London and decided to stay. Judy Larsen now spreads her work time between London and Australia and occasionally, in Europe and Asia.  Passionate about supporting women into leadership, she has worked for the last ten years coaching and mentoring aspiring school leaders as well as co-writing and leading leadership development programmes for women from a range of other public and private organisations.  In addition to her work, she loves gardens, good food … and her grand-daughter!

 Dr Hephzibah Egede is a dual qualified lawyer and Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Buckingham. Prior to joining academia, she practised as a commercial lawyer, working in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria. Currently teaching and undertaking research in International Oil and Gas Law, she is a Co-Director of the University of Buckingham Centre for Extractive Energy Studies (UBCEES) and also provides mentoring and support to the UBCEES Student Energy Club. Hephzibah Egede has published research in International Oil and Gas Law, including a forthcoming co-authored article in the Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law on new oil and gas legal and contractual arrangements for the Niger Delta oil communities. She also researches in reproductive rights and gender equality, her doctoral thesis focussing on the social stigmatisation of involuntary childless women in Sub-Saharan African countries. She has participated in expert groups such as the Social Science Study Group of the ESHRE Special Task Force ‘Developing Countries and Infertility’ and published work on shrouded gender and reproductive issues in child welfare and protection proceedings

Place: Committee Room 1, 5.30pm for 6.00pm to 8.00pm House of Lords – Patron Baroness Gould

[We will begin promptly, so arrival at 5.30pm will ensure you gain a seat.]

 Please register (providing name and address for House of Lords security purposes only) with Ian Beckerton administrator @wwafe-women.org

Future date to remember:

Monday 24 October – Cttee Rm 1 House of Lords

‘Taking Stock – Engendering Energy’

Further information will be available in future posts.