Presentations OtW 2024

Slide:Powerful women, awareness and hope

Welcome

We had the pleasure of meeting many of you in Manchester during our wonderful 100 year Inner Wheel convention or in Budapest a few weeks ago. Therefore some of you may have heard my presentation about Orange the World, or you may have seen the link of the youtube film. But for some of you it is totally new. Please feel that you are all very welcome. Our plan is not to repeat the talk in Manchester but instead, we would like to talk to you today about why and how Inner Wheel the Netherlands picked up the campaign. We are going to talk about powerful women, awareness and the hope we can give when we work together.  If you have any questions please let us know after the talk by raising the hand icon. So we can see who has questions.

Slide:Orange the world.

1 in 3 women have experienced physical or sexual violence

3 in 5 murdered women are killed by their partners or family

Our IW has a consultative status in the United Nations, meaning we have representatives who advise UN committees.

One of the IW representatives, Ceja Gregor, told Dutch members about her work for the UN during a webinar in early 2021. It had a huge impact on our members, and a group of us decided we would like to answer to her request to raise awareness about women’s affairs. 

After this webinar we put a question in our IW NL newsletter and asked members if they would like to participate in a new committee. About 12 members enrolled. Some of them we, as national board already knew, but there were also some new names.  (We all know that very often you hear the same names…….)

Through zoom we started talking about our goal, and wrote a plan with opportunities, challenges, and how we wanted to raise awareness. We realized soon we had to choose 1 subject.  We chose OTW.

As you know Orange the World is the campaign from the united nations against violence against women it runs every year from 25 november until 10 december. It is a global campaign coordinated by UN women. The problem of violence against women  and girls is enormous and underestimated. Globally 1 in 3 women have experienced physical or sexual violence…… and 3 in 5 murdered women are killed by their partners or family. We don’t realize enough that this isn’t just a problem for other people - it happens everywhere, think about our daughters, granddaughters, but also within our own clubs (give example).

 Think about reactions when victims tell their stories…..  because it takes a long long time before women start to talk. We very often ask (in our thoughts or out loud) : why were you in the street that late or why were you wearing that dress….. before I thought more about the subject I did the same but now I realise…..

 As if being late in the street and wearing a short dress are reasons for violation…..

 An issue is also intergenerational transmission. Children who grow up in a violent situation will take it with them their whole lives, they think it is normal and they sometimes become violaters themselvelves.

Slide:  Impact

Inner Wheel stands for women and children. We can become part of the solution when we are more aware of what we can do….. because we all have a huge impact, as a person, an Inner Wheeler or IW club. We are not professional helpers of course but realizing how to react, to listen, we can make a difference. Start a ripple effect, start small, become bigger…….

Violence against women is a problem of society not a problem of women. We need men to support this campaign!!  because most of the time men are the violaters but most men are NOT violaters soooo they can be examples, roll models for boys. They can talk to other men and boys about improper behaviour..

Increasing your Awareness and understanding will make you a richer and more rounded person…… always…. in every subject…... Because let us be honest we very often live in a bit of a bubble……

Back to the plan the Dutch committee wrote…..

it was extensive but made it clear how to proceed.

Slide: preconditions

1.   Involvement

2.   Connection

3.   Importance

4.   Communication

5.   Service = also awareness

 The mission in our plan was and is: All women and therefore children deserve a safe and promising environment

Plan principles

1.   We want to give all members the opportunity to get involved, even if the rest of their own club is not interested.

2.   Connecting approach not an activist approach

3.   Show members the importance of the subject and make it very clear to them what it can do for them,  for our society  and for IW.

4.   Good communication to members but no overkill

5.   Explain to members that Service is of course hands on and fundraising projects but also drawing attention to abuses. By listening and raising awareness we can become part of the solution.

Of course we have within inner Wheel the Netherlands some strengths and challenges to deal with to get the plan  implemented

Slide strengths of IW  in  the Netherlands

1.   Loyalty

2.   Subject

3.   Network

4.   Communication

5.   Benefits

6.   New members

Strengths:

1.   Our members are very loyal, they want to contribute

2.   Womens positions get more and more attention

3.   Members all have an excellent local network

4.   In the Netherlands we have clear communication lines with our members; like our newsletters.

5.   More focus on womens issues will give us more recognizability

6.   Cooperation with partner organisations will help us to potential new members

Of course and it would not be fun if we would not have challenges

Slide Challenges:

1.   Age

2.   Internal focus

3.   Active members

Challenges

1.   Many older members, average age in the Netherlands is 75 yrs

Younger members are busy, IW roll is different in their lives

Younger members want shorter commitment and time needs to be used effective. fun is not enough for them

2.   Members sometimes more internal focused instead of cooperation with other clubs and IW clubs

3.   Small group of active members per club a new subject will give them more work.

So we made a plan to implement OTW using all mentioned preconditions, strengths and challenges.

Implementation:

1.   UN Women

2.   NVR

3.   Communication plan: theme newsletter, webpage, webinars, launch plan, updates

4.   Connection with clubs

IW NL decided on OTW campaign

1.   We connected with UN women in the Netherlands and became part of  a partnergroup with the Soroptimists, Zonta and many others. Also professional organisations are involved. This cooperation brought us many many advantages. Eg every year we send a letter to all municipalities about the campaign and ask for their cooperation signed by UN Women, Inner wheel and other partners,  which makes it easy to contact the municipality about cooperation for local clubs

2.   We became member of the Dutch womens organization NVR. This is the voice of 1 million women in the Netherlands, it is a network. 

Working with UN women and this organization gives us status, within all womens organisations in the Netherlands

3.   All clubs and members need to be informed: so we made a Communication package:

a.   Theme newsletter: once a year we send a OTW newsletter to all members. We started with basic information, where OTW started, different kinds of abuse, letters from members who gave examples…. inviting members to join this awareness campaign.

b.   Website: our Committee for women has a webpage with golden information for clubs and members with books to read, movies, the partner organisations, inspiration what clubs could or did organize

c. Webinars: inspiration webinar, very often a lecture and exchanging what clubs have done.

d.   Launch of the committee for Women during Dutch member meeting and afterward explaining  in a short youtube film.

e.   Every newsletter the committee will give an update what is happening. This year IW is very much involved with the National launch of OTW

Slide: Logo commissie voor vrouwen.

4.   We kept our members and clubs actively engaged.

For example, finding the name of committee was a competition between members :  members could enroll name,

Besides that  a recognizable logo was developed

Also, per club we asked for 1 contact person. That contact person will inform only members in their club who want  to know more  between the yearly campaigns.

Slide: UN Women: pledge

The UN women Netherlands developed a campaign about how to raise awarenes. All the partners promote people to sign “ a pledge” which states:

If we all stand together we can eradicate violence against women and girls from the world.

1.   I do not use violence against women and girls

2.   I take women and girls who report violence serious and support them in finding help

3.   I do what I can to ensure that women and girls can feel safe

4.   I contribute to breaking the taboo around talking about violence against women

5.   I address people in my environment about boundary crossing behaviour.

All interested People, Inner Wheelers and also others can sign this pledge by using a QR code and they will, from then on, get about twice a year an update about the campaign signed by UN women and their partners (also IW).

We are a few years later now in 2024, what do we see in the Dutch clubs, what did they do to  get involved

Slide: Examples  

Examples of what clubs did and do to raise awareness in their clubs and outside  

1.   Some clubs just started one meeting by handing out oranges. They of course got questions…. Why and what….

2.   Some clubs started bigger by organizing an evening to show a movie and discussion afterward.

3.   Many clubs contact local municipalities to raise the OTW flag and contact the partners to work together.

4.   Clubs invite former victims and professionals to talk about their experiences and talk eg  how to recognize and how to act then…

5.   Clubs contacted pubs, handed out coasters to raise awareness…

Please have a look on our webpage

Our social media outings are in connection with our partners. Our PR committee will get info before the yearly campaign. Every year we get many many responses on that.

Last year during the campaign in combination with all our partners we reached in the Netherlands between nov 25 and sdec 10 8 miljlion people……

Slide: let us work together: for women, for Inner Wheel

our call  is: let us work together on this subject.  Maybe members or future members in your country are interested. If you have questions please let me know

The benefit of us working all together as IW Europe will be the huge impact we will have. Very often we do projects for children, also in the Netherlands, but a safe environment  at home is the basis. A safe environment for a better future. And never ever forget the impact you and we all together have. We can contribute in hope because that is what the color orange is standing for.  A sunrise, a new day, with hope for a world without violence against women and girls.

After the zoom last  Thursday we formed a new whats app group for OTW in Europe. If you or you have clubs who want to join let me know with name and phone number so we can add and connect. We now already have 33 members in,this group from different countries, it is really amazing how many members connected with this project.

We are developing a webpage for OTW Europe/international. So todays ppp  and text will be shared there as well as the Manchester talk. We will put tips, information, books etc etc on this webpage

Do not hesitate, if something is not clear to contact us. We will share the link of our Webpage in the App group. It would be lovely when you are organizing something even if it is as simple as handing our oranges during a meeting or on the street to let us know so we can also put it on our webpage. With mentioning your mailadress other members/clubs can contact you.

In the  European OTW app group we will keep you updated, we will end this zoom with the second part of Anouk with her beautiful song and that will be followed by a poll with the question if you would like another zoom in Spring to talk about the campaign, possible actions etc.

Again contact us for information. We love to see OTW spread in Europe or even better the World trough our Inner Wheel

I hope I will see you all in Aarhus during the European Rally, or any other time online or in person.