Empowering women in the Pacific region

For the first time, an alliance of young women from the Pacific region, including Australia and New Zealand, has been formed following the successful launch of the Pacific Young Women’s Leadership Strategy.

This Alliance of organisations, known as the Pacific Young Women’s Leadership Alliance (PYWLA) recently met for the first time in Suva, Fiji.

Members of the Alliance include non-government and UN organisations working to develop the leadership of young Pacific Island women. The Alliance includes representatives from World YWCA, Fem’LINK Pacific, UNFPA, Commonwealth Youth Program, UNICEF, UN Women, Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, Pacific Youth Council, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and International Planned Parenthood Federation.

The formation of the PYWLA is a first for the region and presents a unique opportunity for regional stakeholders to work in partnership with each other to focus specifically on young women, their empowerment and promoting young women’s leadership.

In a press briefing released yesterday, Ms Alice Iwebu Kale, member of the World YWCA Board and representative to the Alliance said: “The Alliance presents an opportunity for stakeholders to raise the concerns of young women to the national, regional and international policy makers and Pacific leaders and ensure that their needs remain firmly on the policy agenda”.

She said the purpose of the Alliance is to add value to, and not replicate or undermine the existing work of Alliance members and other stakeholders in the region. The members are working towards creating more visibility and ensuring that young women are considered in leadership roles and are able to participate in decision making processes.

The Alliance has already experienced a number of successes, including a unanimous commitment by members to host a Pacific Young Women’s Dialogue, scheduled to coincide with the Triennial Conference of Pacific Women in 2013. Other Alliance projects include a mapping study of policies (national, regional and international) to identify the main gaps for young women and an online community of practice for young women and practitioners.

The potential of the PYWLA has recently been recognised when the group was short listed for a small grant by FRIDA - the young feminist fund which awards funding for initiatives driven by young feminists around the world.

Veena Singh Bryar, who represents Femlink Pacific on the Alliance said: “Not only will this community of practice allow us to share information regarding young women’s leadership and their rights as young women but it will also provide us with the platform to engage with other individuals, groups and organizations to share thoughts, good practices, ideas to learn from and be in better positions to influence decision making processes”

She added: “Having this Alliance established specifically to promote young women’s leadership and their rights will very much contribute to changing the current status quo and hopefully will somehow contribute to the realization that inequalities should not only be understood through dichotomies of male domination and female subordination, but rather inequalities have also emerged along generational, class and racial lines”.

In a later exchange with www.keycorrespondents.org , Ms Alice Iwebu Kale said: “Specific challenges of illiteracy, accessibility to health and medical services and relevant information on health issues affecting young women like teenage pregnancy, sexual and reproductive health and rights will be addressed. There are also challenges of gender based violence and rape in addition to being suppressed, and the lack of recognition for young women’s potential by community members, national and regional leaders”.

She added: “Issues around health in general were raised by many young women around the region which were outlined in the Pacific Young Women’s Leadership Strategy. The Alliance would assist by lobbying regional leaders to recognize and support young women’s leadership and will support the implementation of the strategy by seeking funding for initiatives for young women and girls around the region”