Seventeen prominent female NGO and civil society leaders will participate in the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s (JDC) Second International Women’s Leadership Workshop on Sunday, March 3. The five-day intensive seminar, based in Israel, will focus on women as proactive change makers and provide educational, networking, and professional development opportunities in global development and disaster relief. Participants come from thirteen countries, including Argentina, Bosnia, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Russia, Sri Lanka, Serbia, Tanzania, and the U.S.
‘One of the most powerful trends we see in humanitarian work today is the unparalleled role of women as trailblazers and forces for good in communities worldwide. We’re very proud to have these leaders join us and be enriched by JDC’s global expertise. This is an important opportunity to further cultivate a growing network of women who can connect, collaborate, and innovate across borders and during times of crisis,’ JDC CEO Alan H. Gill.
The participants — many of whom have previously worked with JDC as partners in its humanitarian and development efforts around the world — include: , president of ProDev in Haiti; , director of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India; , senior program/research officer at the Human Rights Centre of the University of Sarajevo in Bosnia; , Director of Shalom Bait in Argentina; , founder and executive director of the Afya Foundation in the U.S.; and , CEO and founder of Center for Curative Pedagogics in Russia.
In addition to sessions on empowering women, partnership building, and best practices training, this year’s program features a forum on Adaptive Leadership with Professor Marty Linsky of Cambridge Leadership Associates. Participants will also spend a day exploring JDC-Israel operations, with site visits to programs focused on people with disabilities, education, employment, and community development.
Participants have also chosen to hone their skills in resource development, impact measurement, and public speaking through a series of workshops run JDC experts. As part of their post-Workshop activities, all seminar participants have committed to establishing similar networking and peer support undertakings in their home-countries, after receiving training during their five days.
For nearly 100 years, JDC’s humanitarian interventions and development programs have ensured immediate relief and long-term support tovictims of natural and manmade disasters around the globe, most recently inJapan, Haiti, South Asia, Turkey, and Kosovo. The organization empowers local leaders, rebuilds infrastructure, and revitalizes community life in disaster-stricken regions and coordinates its relief activities in conjunction with the U.S. Department of State, USAID, Interaction, the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the United Nations, and Israeli relief agencies.
