World YWCA President’s Address
Nairobi, Kenya

By Mónica Zetzsche

Vote of thanks to Susan Packard Orr

Susan, as the President of this global movement, I cannot thank you enough. Your extraordinary leadership and generosity in this global campaign have enabled us to realise our collective vision for a fund that will make a difference in the lives of women and girls everywhere. To me, you embody the spirit of global solidarity and responsibility that are founding principles of this movement.

Not only have you opened so many doors to new partners for the World YWCA but you have also generously given of your own resources to help us reach our goal for this World Council: USD $10 million. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you Susan, for your incredible contribution to this campaign. I thank you also for taking time to be with us here in Nairobi for the World YWCA Council and for your inspiring words.

On behalf of this movement, I would like to present you with a token of our appreciation. In doing so, I ask the Council to join me to honour your extraordinary leadership.

Pause for applause / Presentation of Gift to Susan Packard Orr

Today, I have a great honour bestowed upon me. This moment will be treasured in the history of this great movement. It is a milestone that will shape us in the years to come and one, when we begin to transform dreams into reality. It is a moment that has been made possible by the extraordinary efforts of so many women around the world – extraordinary women like Susan Packard Orr and so many of you in this room. Women who lift our spirits and raise our hopes, just like these festive balloons decorating our celebrations today.

It is my immense privilege and pleasure this afternoon here in Nairobi, Kenya before you -- the delegates of the 26th World YWCA Council -- to officially launch the Power to Change Fund for the leadership development of women and girls; that has now reached more then 10 million US dollars.
From this day on we look forward, secure in the knowledge that our expanded resources will equip women and girls to soar to new heights with their power to change lives and communities. Women’s leadership can make our world a better place for all people: especially when it is bolstered with sufficient resources.

The Executive Committee, working with the World staff has developed guidelines for the use of the Power to Change Fund. In the written report shared at the start of this session you will find the proposed guidelines. This Committee wishes to pass these guidelines to the new World Board to be elected during this Council for final approval. We wish to share the joy and privilege of determining how this fund will be used with the movement’s new leadership. The new board will take over the responsibility for being custodians of the fund and ensuring it is wisely invested.

This Executive Committee has approved a policy through which every association will be able to apply to this fund for programmes that promote the vision of the World YWCA; programmes that where justice, peace, health, human dignity, freedom and care for the environment are promoted and sustained through women’s leadership. It is our intent that the final guidelines will be shared with member associations before the end of this year, and from April 2008, associations can apply to the Power to Change Fund. This gives our member associations sufficient time to start thinking creatively and boldly about how we will be able to use these resources in the most efficient and wise way to impact on the communities through the leadership of women and girls.

Before I finish, I want to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you that have contributed to build the Power to Change fund, for your generosity and your commitment. I want to thank those of you who have provided leadership in your own countries to identify donors and mobilise support for the campaign.

I want to thank the women who have worked quietly behind the scene to help turn our visions into actions. I want to make a special mention of our staff and consultants who have resourced this campaign – Michelle Beg, Joyce Feinberg, Laurence Levrat Pictet, Laura MacDonald, Valsa Verghese and Tracy Yellen – and to our dear Musimbi Kanyoro, whose passion and conviction have seen her travel to every corner of the globe in the name of the campaign, for her bold courage to ask and her convincing arguments, that have made donors unable to say no. She has strengthened us all with her bold example. I would also like to acknowledge my predecessors, Anita Anderson who was the World President when the Executive first decided to build an endowment fund for women’s leadership and to Jane Wolfe who chaired the campaign during her Presidency, as well as Eun Kyung Park and Doris Pagelkopf who have led the Financial Development Committee of the Executive.

I thank all of you who have contributed to the global campaign, building the Power to Change Fund in your own special ways, and I thank all of you who will make contributions of time, talent and treasure in the days ahead.

Through the campaign, we have created a spirit of generosity, of women mobilising resources beyond their own borders for the greater good. It is this spirit that I hope will continue. If you raised $5,000 for this campaign, you will be able to do it again, and again, and again.

I encourage you to find ways to sustain and grow resources for this movement, and there can be many ways of expressing this. Supporting a sister YWCA through bilateral partnerships, forming local circles of global giving, expanding your support of existing World YWCA mechanisms, such as the Resource Sharing Programme, and for those of you who know you could have done more in this campaign, continue building the Power to Change Fund.

We have learned and grown through this Fund Raising process. Now it is not the time to stop but the time to continue using the skills learned, teaching one another our best practices to reaffirm our commitment for the future.

I want you to think of the fund like one of these balloons. When it is released it floats higher and higher, carrying our hopes and dreams to places we can only imagine. In a few minutes, we will all go outside to the veranda to launch Power to Change Fund by releasing these balloons and unleashing the Fund’s power. My predecessor Jane Wolfe once said that if we want the power to change, we have to change the power.

Tomorrow, we will change the power!

And finally, let me share with you a little poem that keeps inspiring me in my work in the YWCA and says:

LITTLE drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land.
Little deeds of kindness,
Little words of love,
Make our world an Eden
Like the Heaven above

Let us, as the little drops of water, start changing the power, to make our world and Eden, with the YWCA above.

Thank you.