Soroptimist International President Ann Garvie reports back from “Half the
Sky is Not Enough”, a side event at CSW58, co-sponsored by the Armenian Relief Society, Soroptimist International and International Council of Jewish Women on 12 March 2014.  The event examined the role of new technologies – online peitions and games – in empowering women, while a speaker from the World Bank enphasised the economic arguments for gender equality. 

The first speaker was Katie Bethell, Managing Director of North America campaigns at Change.org. 15 years ago Katie was an intern studying why young women were
not voting, because they do not have enough
knowledge. She saw this as an amazing potential to use on line tools for
example the internet.

Change.org, an online platform for social change via petitions was
launched. Change.org look for outstanding inspiring stories, then call
up the author to discuss how Change.org can help. 

More men start petitions but
more women win petitions, for example: a woman set up a petition on behalf of her sister, who was suffering domestic violence. Her
sister wanted out of the abusive relationship, but when she endeavoured to cancel her
joint mobile phone contract, the company demanded money for breach of
contract. Her sister was outraged and started a petition.

The outcome was the company ceased the practice and trained
their staff how to cope with similar situations and approaches. Many other
companies followed the practice, This example illustrated the power of on line petitioning.
On line petitioning creates a space with a level of safety.

The next speaker was Asi Burak,
President of Games for Change (G4C), award winning game creator, tech executive
and social entrepreneur. 

Asi is an award winning digital games creator, only 10% of
creators are women. Games for Change is a movement to show the positive side of
games and is not for profit. The formula is to facilitate social change, to
change the perspective.

There are 1.67 million players in the USA; there is an
outstanding audience to be lobbied. The age profile of players is changing through natural
evolution, from childhood to adulthood. The company have made four games around
“Half the Sky is not Enough”.

Jeni Klugman
Director of Gender and Development at the World Bankthen described what the World Bank is doing to support change.
The Bank is a big player in International economic development. Gender equity
is essential for:

•  the elimination of poverty
•  tackling gender disparity

Research undertaken by the bank has evidenced that violence
against women is not only a breach of human rights but a cost to GDP and
equates to a loss of one and a half % of GDP.

Gender discrimination must be addressed because it is a
barrier to economic opportunity.

I congratulate UN Representative New York Bette Levy for her
outstanding contribution as part of the organising committee of this event. The
moderator and the speakers were exceptional in their sphere of knowledge and
articulation.