Last friday I had my first license to arrange TEDxWomen. I was very excited about getting this opportunity and onboarded Accenture and Polyteknisk Forening as my local partners to host and share the event-invitation with their members. The event was a co-location event kicking of in NY and then handed over to LA and done in duality with sessions moving back and forth.
I am a big supporter of TED. The format and the messages from the speakers are important thoughts and change-making messages we need to enable change-makers and followers. As a true technology-feminist, I eagerly grabbed the opportunity to apply for a license to host the TEDxWomen Event, and was very happy when I got accepted, and actually just trusting the brand that they also were able to move into this important matter.
TED did not let me down. When I was preparing thursday night to check if all my links for video was working, I found myself watching the one more stunning sharing than the other, and the time was just rushing by.
Friday morning came, early and bright. We managed to gather 10 women to sit and reflect for one hour. We watched the session on resilliance. How do you in a hasty world manage? More important how do women around the world stand up to the unfairness and create their own space in what they believe is important? Tears did hit our eyes as we where watching Lamis Zein, mother of 2 daughters living in Libanon. Divorcing her husband and having to leave her kids with her husband. Getting an education as a cluster demolatiour and now leading a squade of only mothers and beeing in high demand. Cleaning important land in Libanon enabling kids to play and farmes to grow their food. Or how about Sisiwe Mkhubmuzi from South Africa who organized busses of girls to take back the streets for girls in SouthAfrica to walk in. Probably a name we will see appearing as the prime-minister of South Africa one day.
Sitting in comfertable Norway, one gets overwellmed and think so why complain and wean. And yes, we shall not, but we also have our challenges. We need to work in a global manner to support each other, but we also need to adress the local challenges. Because we still have an important role to set the path. My great grandmother had to divorce her husband (he was a mean alcholic but very rich) her price was to make her 3 kids not applicable to inherit him. Moving with her kids to a small city (Drammen) outside of Oslo and make her living as a sewer and a cleaning lady, putting her 3 kids through secondary education. My grandmother was one of the first women in the local parlament. My mother started up women-birth hospitals in our local neighborhood and I worked with getting quotas for women to boardroom and empowering women to step up and take ownership and leadership.
So, all of us are connected and we must remember that each matter matters. Yesterday afternoon I attended a workshop at the Norwegian School of Management and I watched the students preparing for their exames. Girls where sitting with girls and boys where sitting with boys. What kind of responsibility do our public funded educations system have to mix to enable us to work as equal partners from day 1 ? What is the responsibility of media to put women on the stage to give us role-models? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2UZZV3xU6Q&list=PLEE9AC26982836D59&index=2&feature=plpp_video
What is the responsibility of each of us to stand out in the lime-light with our story to share ?
All these questions are important and unanswered as a common rule, but answered by each one of us as individuals. Only we have the power to move beyon the limitations other people are putting on us.
For more stunning videos and thougths:
http://tedxwomen.org/
Photo of the great group sharing the moment on friday:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/71232595@N02/6440794919/
Link to my foundation working on establishing a virtual platform to connect women around the world:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=1777723&trk=anet_ug_hm&goback=%2Enas_*1_*1_*1%2Enas_account_nsettings*5customize*5stream_*1
mandag 5. desember 2011
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