By Mónica Zetzche

Your Excellency Hon Mwai Kobaki, honourable guests and friends.

On behalf of the YWCA movement, I have the great pleasure to welcome you all, to this event of the World YWCA Council.

The World YWCA is a global women’s volunteer movement, working through 107 autonomous affiliated associations and 18 developing groups, with a clear purpose of empowering women and girls, building a collective leadership for social change.

Based on Christian values but open to women of all faiths, working in local communities but linked nationally, regionally and globally, the World YWCA is uniquely placed to reach women and girls across the globe. With support, they are able to transform communities and to produce a positive change in the lives of those around them. YWCAs have a programmatic priority for younger members, to ensure their voices are included in planning and decision making processes. Our programs promote change and transformation, through organized networks, working together within the non-profit and volunteer structure.

As a women’s organization, managed and led by women, the primary objective of all programs is, as we mentioned, “the empowerment of women and girls”, which, in the context of HIV and AIDS pandemic, means enabling them to take responsibility for their own lives and for those in their communities; through education on HIV and AIDS prevention, by providing resources, models and support for care of people living with HIV, lobbying for access to treatment and advocating for long-term strategies to overcome cultural, social and economic barriers, which affect mainly women.

In 1999, through its Strategic Plan, the World YWCA decided to make HIV and AIDS and Women Reproductive Health and Rights, a priority programme, launching a massive offensive against the pandemic by mobilizing women in thousands of local communities and villages to integrate HIV prevention into every existing development effort, identifying, sharing and scaling up best practices. Including leaders at all levels and especially trained young women with the appropriate skills, knowledge and tools, the World YWCA has promoted the structures needed all around the world, strengthening cooperation, sharing with partner organizations and positioning the YWCA in a key role in the leadership work on HIV and AIDS.

Today, YWCAs in more than 80 countries are committed to programs related with reproductive health and HIV and AIDS, including advocacy, prevention, care and community awareness, through capacity building and leadership development at national, regional, sub regional and international levels. In this sense, the World YWCA fund raising process is key, granting its members the provision of start up resources for new HIV initiatives and support for ongoing successful programs.
The organization’s outreach has also extended well beyond its own infrastructure to mobilize other strategic partners in the fight against the pandemic, including faith based youth and women’s organizations.

Keeping our mission clear, we have redirected World YWCA programs and resources to address this global emergency. The coming years will enable us to build on this experience to continue focusing on this challenge; as we know women are the most vulnerable and are becoming disproportionately affected.

As Chair of the World Board, I feel honoured to welcome the special guests and all of you. Our objective in hosting the Summit is to affirm our collective Call to Action. We believe that women's leadership is essential to change the course of this pandemic and we look forward to a week of eventful sharing, learning and supporting one another as we -- change lives and change communities.

Thank you

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