Daniel­la Wade

Every year for In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, the achieve­ments of women lo­cal­ly and glob­al­ly are cel­e­brat­ed. But are we do­ing enough to ad­vance women? Or are we cre­at­ing tem­po­rary dis­trac­tions while ig­nor­ing the chal­lenges women face dai­ly when try­ing to forge ahead?

The an­swer to that ques­tion we’ll nev­er know. Or, at least, not for a few years to come. Women still find it dif­fi­cult to ac­cess crit­i­cal ar­eas where fe­male in­put mat­ters. And, there isn’t suf­fi­cient da­ta read­i­ly avail­able to mea­sure how far we’ve come to re­duce the gen­der di­vide.

But, here’s what we do know. There are or­gan­i­sa­tions lo­cal­ly that work tire­less­ly to build ca­pac­i­ty in the ar­eas that give women and girls a life­long ad­van­tage.

The As­so­ci­a­tion of Fe­male Ex­ec­u­tives of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s (Afett) mis­sion is to make women win­ners. To fos­ter a re­silient com­mu­ni­ty of pro­fes­sion­al women who lever­age their re­sources to en­able growth in women and girls, thus ac­cel­er­at­ing gen­der par­i­ty.

In line with the 2024 theme for In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day–In­spir­ing In­clu­sion–Afett cre­ates op­por­tu­ni­ties that al­low women to carve their space and make pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions that help oth­er women and girls do the same.

But, as we al­so pay at­ten­tion to the Unit­ed Na­tions for their In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day theme–In­vest in Women: Ac­cel­er­ate Progress–we see the fo­cus on a gran­u­lar prob­lem that hin­ders the pro­gres­sion of in­clu­sion–a lack of fund­ing.

An ad­di­tion­al US$360 bil­lion is need­ed year­ly to achieve gen­der equal­i­ty in de­vel­op­ing coun­tries.

We’re all in this to­geth­er.

Less talk. More ac­tion. More mon­ey. That’s what it’s go­ing to take to en­sure more women are in­clud­ed in every plat­form, or­gan­i­sa­tion and com­mu­ni­ty crit­i­cal for so­cio-eco­nom­ic suc­cess. And, that’s why for over 20 years, Afett has pas­sion­ate­ly worked to cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties where pro­fes­sion­al women lever­age their re­sources to build a bet­ter world for women and girls.

Afett pres­i­dent, Mrs Me­le­na Si­mon-O’Neil shares, “As high­light­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tions, fur­ther in­vest­ment is ur­gent­ly need­ed to ac­cel­er­ate progress to close gen­der gaps by 2030. Afett sup­ports the view that em­pow­er­ing women is key to fos­ter­ing in­clu­sion and cre­at­ing a more eq­ui­table world. When women are em­pow­ered eco­nom­i­cal­ly, so­cial­ly, and po­lit­i­cal­ly, they be­come agents of change in their com­mu­ni­ties, dri­ving progress and cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for oth­ers. By in­vest­ing in ed­u­ca­tion, health­care, en­tre­pre­neur­ship, and lead­er­ship de­vel­op­ment for women, we can un­lock our full po­ten­tial and in­spire oth­ers to fol­low our foot­steps.”

Afett, a lo­cal, vol­un­teer-based, fe­male-on­ly NGO, fa­cil­i­tates ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing, month­ly pro­grammes and net­work­ing events with at­ten­dance from 50 to 300 peo­ple. In ad­di­tion, Afett is well-known for its out­reach pro­grammes that cre­ate a step-up for women and girls of di­verse so­cio-eco­nom­ic back­grounds.

Equip­ping for suc­cess

Key projects like the REACH Men­tor­ship pro­gramme de­vel­op life skills among girls 13 to 18 years old, pair­ing them with suc­cess­ful fe­male lead­ers who serve as their men­tors. The Six Steps To Suc­cess pro­gramme gives young women aged 17 to 25 years key skills to help them nav­i­gate the work­place.

Build­ing con­fi­dence

Our flag­ship event, Suit Me Up, is na­tion­al­ly the most an­tic­i­pat­ed Afett event. Every year, high-end, pre-loved cor­po­rate cloth­ing is do­nat­ed by pro­fes­sion­al women, and sold for as low as $20 to en­sure work­ing women have ac­cess to cloth­ing that boost their im­age and con­fi­dence, re­gard­less of their bud­get. The event specif­i­cal­ly fea­tures used cloth­ing, but many women find pre­mi­um suits, dress­es, and sep­a­rates with tags at­tached.

Pro­tect­ing the vul­ner­a­ble

Afett’s newest ini­tia­tive launched last No­vem­ber–Sur­vival Sis­ters–as­sists vic­tims of gen­der-based vi­o­lence with a toolk­it of nec­es­sary sur­vival re­sources.

Bril­liant and re­silient

Where Afett tru­ly cel­e­brates the im­pact of lo­cal women is at its sig­na­ture Women of In­flu­ence Awards and Men­tor­ship event, held in recog­ni­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day. Women of In­flu­ence at­tracts women in the high­est of­fices in the coun­try to net­work and cel­e­brate five fe­male pi­o­neers in the lo­cal land­scape. This year’s event will be held on March 27 at Queen’s Hall at 10 am and promis­es to be an­oth­er ex­hil­a­rat­ing event.

No woman is an is­land

We’re all in this to­geth­er. De­spite the chal­lenges, more pro­fes­sion­al women must get in­volved in projects in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal to the work­place to con­tin­ue lend­ing sup­port to the younger gen­er­a­tion now mak­ing their way there. Step up and lift a woman or girl with you.

Daniel­la Wade is the di­rec­tor of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions & Pub­lic Re­la­tions at Afett.