Global Experts Discuss Peace, Power, and Prosperity for Women & Girls

If you are having trouble accessing the Zoom,
you may also watch the event on Facebook Live.
Watch on Facebook Live

Please join The Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts and Berkshire Community College as we celebrate 25 years since the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. This event became the impetus for the founding of The Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts (WFWM).

On Friday, September 11th  at 3:00 PM EST we invite you to join this virtual event featuring a conversation with Dr. Silke Staab, Research Specialist at UN Women, Dr. Valerie M. Hudson, Author, Professor, and expert on national security policy and gender, and Dr. Kathleen Szegda, Director of Community Research and Evaluation at the Public Health Institute of Western MA. These prominent experts will speak to the progress toward peace, power, and prosperity for women, girls, and thus for communities.

The afternoon will begin with an address from Women’s Fund CEO, Donna Haghighat with an introduction to our global experts to follow. Like the women who attended the Beijing conference, we will then turn our perspectives from global to local to discuss the status of women and girls in Western Massachusetts before ending the event with a live Q&A.

Meet the Featured Experts:

Silke Staab is a research specialist at UN Women, New York, and co-author of several of the organization’s flagship reports, including Progress of the World’s Women and, most recently, Women’s Rights in Review 25 Years after Beijing. Before joining UN Women, she worked as a researcher for different UN agencies and non-governmental organizations, including the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Silke holds a Ph.D. in Politics from the University of Manchester and has published widely on gender, social protection, and childcare policies. Her 2017 book Gender and the Politics of Gradual Change (Palgrave) analyzes progress and limitations of social policy reforms and innovations in Chile from a gender perspective.

Valerie M. Hudson is a University Distinguished Professor and holds the George H.W. Bush Chair in the Department of International Affairs at The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, where she directs the Program on Women, Peace, and Security. Hudson is one of the Principal Investigators of The WomanStats Project (http://womanstats.org), which includes the largest compilation of data on the status of women in the world today. She is the co-author of Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population, Sex and World Peace, The Hillary Doctrine: Sex and American Foreign Policy, and The First Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide.

Kathleen Szegda, Ph.D., M.P.H., M.S. is the Director of Community Research and Evaluation. Dr. Szegda has over 20 years of public health/research experience working at the national, state, and local levels at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Emory University, Baystate Children’s Hospital, and the University of Massachusetts. Dr. Szegda holds a Ph.D. in Public Health in Epidemiology from the University of Massachusetts, an M.P.H. from Emory University, and an M.S. in Counseling from Georgia State University. Her research interests are maternal and child health, mental health, and health disparities. Her research is also aimed at identifying effective community-level systems, policy, and environmental changes to improve health equity, which is informed by her experience working to promote policy and systems change at the national level at the U.S. CDC’s Office of Genomics and at a local level as the Director of the Pioneer Valley Asthma Coalition. She is co-PI for a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Policies to Action Research award focused on understanding the impact of Complete Streets policy on health through an equity lens. Dr. Szegda is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at UMass Medical School-Baystate, a fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Delivery and Population Science at UMass Medical School-Baystate, and an adjunct faculty in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she teaches a health impact assessment class.

Tickets:

For those able to purchase a ticket, the standard price for digital access to this fundraising event is $25.00 to commemorate 25 years since the Fourth World Conference for Women.

Thank you to our incredible sponsors for providing access to a wider audience. Free tickets available and donations are welcome. Proceeds from this event will go to women and girls in the WFWM community.

Attendees will receive the link to join the event one week prior to the event. If you have not yet received the link by September 4, contact Kelley Bryant.

Peace, Power, and Prosperity is made possible by our event sponsors:

Power Sponsors

• Berkshire Bank
• GameChangers 360
• Greylock Federal Credit Union
• The Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts Founders: Dianne Fuller Doherty, the late Sally Livingston, and Martha Richards

Peace Sponsor

• Greenfield Community College
• Social Mission Catalysts LLC