Women?s Week activities feature generational encounter
Women’s Week: it’s hardly the kind of story you’d expect to lead this newscast following a long holiday weekend. But the progress of Belizean women has been building slowly over many, often frustrating years. And if future historians are asked to cite a point at which the movement reached critical mass, it would probably be this first week in March when a record forty-six women candidates ran for municipal office and eighteen were elected. The victors include two mayors: Zenaida Moya of Belize City and Elsa Paz in San Pedro. But the rise of woman power in Belize is not contained to politics, as every year seems to find an increasing number of females holding top jobs in business, the arts, and the nation’s professional life. So this week we’ll celebrate in ways large and small, beginning our coverage with an encounter in Belize City between the young and young at heart.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
As past of official Women?s Week activities, today seniors and primary school students gathered at the Helpage Activity Centre on Wilson Street for what?s being called an intergenerational exchange.
Coordinated by the Women?s Department, the National Council on Ageing, and the National Kriol Council, the idea is to pass on an appreciation for traditional games and activities to the next generation.
Icilda Humes, Human Development Coordinator, Women?s Dept.
?Things like filling a Klim pan with sand and putting the string on it and rolling it in the yard has been replaced by remote control. The Tataduende storytelling has been replaced by the X-Box and the Play Station. And we as a community need to try to play our part and in particular the Women?s Department today during this week is trying to play our part in ensuring that our young people know that these are the things that make Belize, Belize and we can?t lose our culture, we can lose our folklore.?
According to Human Development Coordinator in the Women?s Department Icilda Humes, when these students leave today, they just might want to share what they?ve learned.
Icilda Humes
?We are trying to ensure that there is a lot of interaction this afternoon and hopefully these primary school students will take it back to their peers in the school yard, in the classroom and try to sort of revitalise our folklore.?
