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Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) delivered the keynote address at a March 22 luncheon honoring the Women’s Discussion Club of Kyrgyzstan, the 2012 recipient of the Madeleine K. Albright Grant awarded by NDI.
In her address, Wasserman Schultz challenged women to take the lead. “Too often, women don’t speak up,” Wasserman Schultz said. “But women's voices are crucial to democracy.”
The luncheon, hosted by NDI Chairman Albright, at the Ritz Carlton also featured remarks from Melanne Verveer, the State Department’s ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues.
“When women are discriminated against in the political arena, their experiences, talents and perspectives are shut out of policy decisions,” Verveer said. “Our democracies are worse off for it and the prospects for a better world are certainly short changed.”
Verveer presented the Albright grant to Dinara Aitkulova, chair of the Women’s Discussion Club of Kyrgyzstan, and introduced a short documentary detailing the work of the club.
The Discussion Club, launched with NDI support in 2006, was one of the first groups in Kyrgyzstan to bring together women from diverse backgrounds and political parties to defend the rights and interests of women nationwide. The women will use the award’s $25,000 grant to form a coalition of political party women’s wings to advocate on behalf of women’s rights within the legislature and their respective parties.
Watch the video from the luncheon
“The Women’s Discussion Group from Kyrgyzstan is precisely the kind of innovative and grassroots organization that can help to make real democracy possible,” Albright said. “When women have the power to make their own economic and social choices – the cycle of poverty can be broken, environmental awareness increases, rates of sexually-transmitted disease decline, and constructive values are more likely to be passed on to the young.”
The award luncheon was preceded by a panel discussion on women in politics featuring Albright; Winnie Byanyima, director of the gender team at the United Nations Development Programme; Donald Steinberg, deputy administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development; and Anders B. Johnsson, secretary general of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. NDI Vice-President Shari Bryan moderated the panel.
The panelists shared their experiences that have demonstrated both the progress women have gained in politics and the room for growth. They agreed that political parties can be a vehicle for equal participation as long as the parties are internally democratic.
"We were talking to women, telling them to work harder, bang on more doors,” said Byanyima, a former member of parliament in Uganda who led its women’s caucus. “Now we're asking parties to open those doors."
At the event, NDI and the UNDP released a joint publication entitled "Empowering Women for Stronger Political Parties." The guide provides strategies for those who work in and with political parties to increase women's political participation as candidates, party members, leaders and office holders.
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