lady
was taking a walk along the beach early
in the morning. The beach was filled with
starfishes that have been washed up on
the shore. Naturally after the sun came
out strong, these starfishes would dry
up and die. This lady was picking up starfishes
one by one and throwing them back into
the sea. Someone asked her why she kept
on doing this when she can’t possibly
make a difference as there are too many
starfishes on the shore. The lady smiled,
picked up another starfish, threw it back
into the sea and said
"It
makes a difference to THAT ONE!"
Over
the past 75 years, BPW members worldwide
have been working on improving status of
women, developing women potential to enable
them to sustain themselves, lobbying for
women issues to promote gender equality
in their own country, at the United Nations
and other International bodies. Though we
have to admit that today multitude of problems
facing women remain, we should not feel
discourage and wonder why we should continue
our quest when we can’t possibly solve
all the issues for millions of women in
the world.
Candle
lighting ceremony is an opportunity for
BPW members to remind ourselves that we
are not alone in our effort to achieve the
aim of developing women professional and
leadership potential at all levels. We are
a part of network that makes a different
world-wide.
When
we light the candles of our founders, we
should remember the difference the founders
of BPW International did make. We should
remember things that our founders successfully
advocated for, such as the formation of
United Nations Commission on Status of women
and the organization of the First Women
World Conference, which helped build a foundation
that strengthen the efforts to address women
issues and monitor advancement of Women
at global level today.
When
we light the candles of other BPW member
countries, we should remember the different
we did make through ongoing work to help
women gain their economic independence world-wide.
Just from projects submitted for “Beyond
2000: Helping Women Help themselves”
Competition during the year 2002 to 2005
alone, BPW helped over 45,000 women to help
themselves. That’s just the count
of the work done over the past 6 years.
We can only imagine what the real total
is, should we take into account all BPW
work in the past 75 years!
Time and distance may not always allow BPW
members to meet. But remember, when we share
and strive toward the same aim, our actions
would make us one. May the candles we light
today guide the way for us to continue to
make a difference.
Chonchanok
Viravan
BPW International President |
