Submitted. Mark your calendars! The Business And Professional Women’s Club have two wonderful women Jean Douglas- Webb and Vivienne Chen both with an empowering message. Join the BPW as we celebrate International Women’s Day.
March 8th Phoenix Ballroom at 6:00 networking, dinner and candle lighting ceremony.
Bring a friend.
Members $25 – Guests $35
March 8th 6pm “Standing up for women’s rights in a climate of fear”
Vivienne, pictured at right, is a criminal justice professional with more than 25 years of experience in the security and justice sectors, having worked in a government service in Singapore, an intergovernmental agency, the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, as well as a non-governmental professional organization, the Commonwealth Magistrates’ and Judges’ Association in London. She is currently a Senior Associate of a United Nations affiliated research institute, the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy in Vancouver. Her work has focused on the promotion of the rule of law and good governance, human rights, peace-building, criminal justice reform and policy development in the justice sector, and institution building in post-conflict societies. This includes programs to assist the effective domestic implementation of international standards and norms and international treaties in particular those relating to children’s rights, juvenile justice, human trafficking including labor trafficking, human smuggling, victims’ rights, women’s rights, violence against women, counter-terrorism, transnational organized crime, corruption, prison reform and the social reintegration of young and adult offenders. She is most proud of her work in South Sudan and Ethiopia.
March 8th 6PM Grandmothers in Solidarity – We will Not Rest Until They Can Rest
Jean Douglas-Webb is a retired community services worker and a grandmother of two, living with her partner Andrea in rural Abbotsford. Jean is a founding member of the Abbotsford Gogos, one of 240 groups of volunteers across Canada who have raised $25 million over the past ten years to support their African sisters. The funds are donated to the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign of the Stephen Lewis Foundation who direct it to more than 300 grassroots projects in 15 sub-Saharan countries. The Foundation is unique in that it operates in partnership and solidarity with existing projects and has thus sustained the lives of thousands of Grandmothers who are raising the many children who have been orphaned by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In May 2010 Jean had the honour of attending the first African Grandmother’s Gathering in Manzini, Swaziland. She was one of 42 Canadian Grandmother delegates who attended at the request of Swaziland Positive Living (SWAPOL) to be witnesses to the work that is being accomplished.