Women’s Summit: much accomplished, much to be done

It’s the middle of their week and today News Five’s Jacqueline Woods joined women from all over the country at the Radisson for what was billed as a summit.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Since the first International Women?s Day was observed in Belize in the late 70?s, various organisations have worked hard to promote women?s rights and their participation in the country?s political and economic life. But just how far have we come in meeting that objective? Director of Women?s Affairs, Carol Fonseca, says it only recently that Belizean women have made real strides … and mores till needs to be done.

Carol Fonseca, Director, Women?s Department
?When we think of Justice Michele Arana, who is the first female appointed to the Supreme Court. We now have our first Belize City Mayor, we have in our House of Representatives, we have the Speaker of the House. But when it comes to in terms of the House of Representatives and in the political arena, we have our only Minister of Human Development, the Honourable Sylvia Flores … and so for us there is certainly something that is lacking.?

So what is preventing women from getting ahead? One problem is the lack of support for women by women.

Carol Fonseca
?That seems to be a basic problem and that is something that we are trying to nurture and trying to see how we can work with women throughout our country to ensure that they collaborate and that we are not so territorial.?

Gina Belafonte, Women?s Rights Advocate
?Some women like all people have certain stability and force within them that they are going to pursue that they are going to push ahead no matter what. And I think that in other instances because of early instilled beliefs or misconceptions about who we are as women get stuck within us so that when we get older we are afraid that the access is going to be taken away. There is not enough room for everyone, so I have to be territorial.?

Carol Fonseca
?The fact of the matter is, Jackie, you know as women no matter where we are in Belize, from the States, in England; wherever we are we face similar challenges and it is only in coming together as women that we are actually able to find the solutions to these problems.?

And so women from across the country gathered this morning at the Radisson Fort George Hotel to participate in a one day summit to discuss the many challenges that confront them.

Carol Fonseca
?We are focusing on the issue of education, on health, and also women in decision making and leadership roles. So the whole day what we are doing is inviting presenters, both Belizean presenters as well as our U.S sisters to talk about these issues and to really come up with tangible?in terms of where do we go from here. We are asking a lot of hard questions about the way we have been doing things and what are our priorities in relation to these three areas.?

One of the visiting delegates is Gina Belafonte. Belafonte, who is an actor, producer, advocate for women?s rights, and daughter of well known entertainer Harry Belafonte, strongly believes that it is important for young women to have positive role models in their lives.

Gina Belafonte
?Having the role models that surround you, you can aspire to that give you the opportunity for the access and the choice to be anything that you want to be. So I grew up in an opportunity where I had a lot of women that surrounded me that were very powerful, very wise.?

This week several women were honoured for their outstanding contributions. They include Justice Michelle Arana, Minister Sylvia Flores, Anita Zetina, Nellie McCord, Barbara Harris, Jewel Quallo Rosberg, and Sonia Linares. Jacqueline Woods for News Five.

Women’s Week activities continue on Thursday with an anti-violence rally and exhibition at the Wilton Cumberbatch Field and a student summit at Ebenezer primary School.