The New Hampshire Women's Caucus Seeks to Educate and Empower Participants to Improve the Status of Women
NEW LONDON, N.H., Sept. 29, 2011 – This November, Colby-Sawyer College will host “What Women Want Now: The New Hampshire Women's Caucus,” a lively forum for identifying the issues most critical to women and equipping participants with education and resources that will assist them in improving women's status in the state, nation and world. Sheryl WuDunn, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and co-author of The New York Times best-selling book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, will deliver the keynote address.
The New Hampshire Women's Caucus (NHWC) takes place on Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011, shortly before the state's first-in-the-nation primary, subsequent state primaries and the 2012 state and national elections, an opportune time to highlight the issues that matter most to women. Complimentary childcare is available at the college's Windy Hill School with advance registration. Reserved tickets for WuDunn's keynote address are included in the caucus registration fee or may be purchased separately. A book-signing and reception will follow WuDunn's presentation. To learn more and register, visit www.colby-sawyer.edu/nhwomenscaucus/.
“We know that when women work together, we have the power to improve the lives of women and their families,” says Colby-Sawyer College Assistant Professor of Humanities Margaret Wiley, one of the event's founders. “The New Hampshire Women's Caucus seeks to bring women of all ages and political persuasions together to focus attention on areas where they can bring about profound and necessary changes. One of our most important goals is to ensure that caucus participants engage in women's most critical issues and feel inspired and prepared to act as agents of change in the world, both individually and collectively, to improve the status of women.”
The NHWC program features opening remarks by Ann McLane Kuster, a public policy advocate, attorney, and candidate for the U.S. House of Representatatives. Three panels of experts will follow in the morning session, presenting arguments for issues within three major topic areas: women and the economy; women, health and healthcare; and global women's issues.
The mid-day caucus session will include lunch, discussion and voting, with participants invited to introduce additional issues or topics for consideration for The New Hampshire Women's Caucus Platform. The afternoon's Tools for Change workshop features discussions with a panel of experts who will offer strategies, practical advice and resources for building community and creating positive change through traditional and social media, legislative and public policy advocacy, government and politics, and community-based and non-profit organizations.
Prior to Sheryl WuDunn's keynote speech, The New Hampshire Women's Caucus Platform will be announced publicly, identifying the issues that participants deem both critical to women and able to be addressed effectively through collective engagement and action. The platform will be delivered to traditional and social media as well as to political candidates and office holders.
In Half the Sky, keynote speaker Sheryl WuDunn and co-author and husband Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist and reporter, cite three major areas of oppression against women around the world as “the moral outrage of our century”: sex trafficking and forced prostitution; gender-based violence, including honor killings and mass rape; and maternal mortality.
WuDunn and Kristof have launched a multimedia effort that includes an online social action campaign to build a movement to end oppression and empower women and girls through education and economic support. They make a compelling argument in Half the Sky that by providing women with the tools to educate and support themselves, the entire family and the community benefit in ways that traditional aid organizations have only recently begun to recognize.
Expert Moderators and Panelists
The “Women and the Economy” panel will be moderated by Cotton M. Cleveland, president of Mather Associates and founding executive director of Leadership New Hampshire. Panelists include Dartmouth College Provost Carol L. Folt, Ph.D., who will address the lack of affordable, high quality childcare and and its negative effects on working women; Monica Zulauf, executive director of the YWCA, who will speak to women's workplace concerns such as the persistent pay gap between women and men. and the need to adapt the workplace for mothers. Sarah Chaisson Warner, M.P.P., executive director of New Hampshire Citizens Alliance, who will address the topic of women and social security.
The “Women, Health and Healthcare” panel will be moderated by Susan Reeves, Ed.D., chair of the Colby-Sawyer College Nursing Department, associate academic dean for Dartmouth-Hitchcock Partnership Programs, and vice president of Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. Panelist Heather Farr, director of Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program for the state of New Hampshire and the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, will speak about domestic and sexual violence.
The health care needs of uninsured women will be addressed by Kristina Fjeld, M.P.H., director of the New Hampshire Uninsured Project and deputy director of the New Hampshire Area Health Education Center. Jennifer Frizzell, J.D., a senior policy advisor for Northern New England Planned Parenthood and former director of policy for the New Hampshire State Senate, will discuss the need for affordable healthcare for women and the growing challenges to women's reproductive health.
The “Global Women's Issues” panel will be moderated by Pamela Serota Cote, Ed.D, associate dean of International and Diversity Programs at Colby-Sawyer College. Wilma Longdon, M.S., the executive director of WomensTrust, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping women and girls help themselves through microfinance, education and healthcare, will address ways that small investments can transform the lives of women and girls. Lisa Baldez, Ph.D., associate professor of government at Dartmouth College, will discuss whether the United States should ratify the U.N. Treaty on Women's Rights. The United States is one of just seven countries in the world that has not yet ratified the U.N. Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and Professor Baldez maintains that ratification would enable this country to participate in an important global forum that addresses women's rights as human rights. Human trafficking at home and abroad will be discussed by Jennifer Durant, M.A., public policy specialist for New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence.
The moderators and panelists will join participants for lunch and a caucus session moderated by Ricia McMahon, chair of the Sutton (N.H.) Selectboard and a former three-term representative in of the N.H. Legislature and White House policy advisor. Caucus participants will debate the issues introduced in the morning panels in more depth and have opportunities to advocate for other topics that are important to them. The participants will be urged to support those issues that they believe are both critical to women and areas in which women and men can work together to effectively improve women's status. Ultimately, these issues will be represented in the New Hampshire Women's Caucus Platform.
The Tools for Change workshop will be an interactive and instructive session that assists participants in bringing about positive changes for women in their local communities, in the national discourse and politics, and in the global community. Moderated by Melissa Meade, Ph.D., associate professor of Humanities at Colby-Sawyer College, the panel features experts and leaders in media, non-profit organizations, public policy advocacy and government.
Jeff Feingold, editor of The New Hampshire Business Review, a contributor to TheLobbyNH.com and a frequent guest on public affairs programs on television and radio, will discuss the use of traditional print and online media as tools for change, while Karlyn Morissette, M.B.A., director of Social Media at Southern New Hampshire University, will focus on effective strategies for building community and initiating action through social media.
Jamila Raqib, executive director of The Albert Einstein Institution in Boston, Mass., will discuss strategies for using non-violent action to foster change, while Dana Dakin, founder and president of WomensTrust, will highlight ways that individuals can create grass-roots organizations run by and for women that improve the economic status, health and education of women and girls.
Elizabeth Hager, recently retired as the executive director of Merrimack County United Way and a former New Hampshire State Representative and mayor of Concord, N.H., will discuss ways to facilitate change through participation in state and local government. N.H. House Minority Leader Terie Norelli, now serving her eighth two-year term in the New Hampshire House of Representatives, is the only Democrat to serve in this role in nearly 100 years and the second woman to serve as speaker of the House. She will also discuss effective public policy advocacy at the state government level as an effective means for societal improvements.
To learn more about What Women Want Now: The New Hampshire Women's Caucus, visit www.colby-sawyer.edu/nhwomenscaucus or contact Kimberly Swick Slover, director of communications at Colby-Sawyer College, at kslover@colby-sawyer.edu.
