UN honour reinforces Alana’s fight for equality
When the second most powerful person in the United Nations visited Australia recently, a member of The Salvation Army’s International Development Office staff was invited to meet her.
Alana Zammit is a projects coordinator at the International Development Office (SAID). She describes meeting Michelle Bachelet, Under-Secretary General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the recently established UN Women – as a rewarding moment.
“I’ve never met someone so advanced in the international development movement so it was quite an honour to meet her,” she says.
Alana represented SAID at a number of functions held in honour of Ms Bachelet in Canberra. They included a reception hosted by AusAID, and attending a lecture Ms Bachelet gave at the Australian National University.
One of the key things Alana learned was that The Salvation Army is on track in the area of gender equality and supporting women.
“We’ve actually already started on this path to being more conscious about the projects that we are choosing to fund overseas and how they are improving gender equality for women,” she says.
“Michelle Bachelet talked a lot about how we need to encourage women’s economic participation and empowerment. In many of the projects that SAID has been looking at this year … we prioritise those that directly improve the livelihood, education skills and economic opportunities for women.”
According to the United Nations, empowering women fuels thriving economies, spurring productivity and growth. However, gender inequalities remain deeply entrenched in every society. The SAID website reports that “in spite of making up more than half of the global population, women and girls routinely figure at the bottom of every economic, social and political indicator.”
Some of the projects that SAID has supported this year to encourage gender equality include a microcredit development project in Tanzania, a women’s literacy project across three nations, and supporting a girls vocational training centre in Kenya.
Alana says meeting Ms Bachelet and networking with other representatives of international development at the UN functions has been uplifting.
“It has reinforced the direction that we have been pushing towards this year – to focus more on gender equality,” she says. “So it is a great encouragement to know that we are on the right path.”
To learn more about The Salvation Army’s International Development Office or how you can help support women around the world, go to: salvos.org.au/said
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