Recognition Of Women’s International Role

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30156, 13 June 1963, Page 2

Recognition Of Women’s International Role

The Government's recognition of women’s worth-while contribution to international understanding has been expressed further by the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) who has sent a letter of greetings to the International Council of Women’s triennial conference which opens in Washington, D.C., next week.

Last month, the Government made a grant of £5OO to the National Council of Women of New Zealand to assist in sending a delegate to the conference.

The Dominion president of the council (Mrs \V. Grant) is New Zealand's oflicial delegate and she intends to present Mr Holyoake’s letter when she addressed the conference on the council’s work in New Zealand. She will leave Auckland for the United States today.

After a brief stay in San. Francisco, Mrs Grant will visit New Orleans on her way' to Washington. After the ■ conference, which will bei held from June 19 to June! 30. she will join a party of delegates on a ‘tour of New York city to see the United' Nations, aspects of American 1 community life, and the workl women are doing at local,' national and international I levels She will return to j, New Zealand on a round-1! the-world air ticket. Commonwealth ‘Get-Together 1 During the conference Mrs ! Grant will be a guest at an informal gathering in Washington to be held by British 1 conference delegates on June : 21 for delegates from Com- i monwealth countries. i Several hundred official < delegates representing the I

. International Council’s 49 'affiliated countries in Europe. I Asia, Africa, and South ! .America, as well as the i United States. Canada. Aus--1 tralia and New Zealand, will ' attend the conference. Many special groups from the 'National Council of Women ' of the United States will visit I particular sessions. 75th Anniversary The conference marks the 1 seventy-fifth anniversary of 'the founding of both the National Council of Women of the United States and the International Council of Women. Mrs J F. Kennedy, wife of the President of the United States, is chairman of a nation-wide anniversary committee set up by the council of the United States Next week's conference will

be a tribute to the solid, cooperative efforts of affiliated members of the council, who have carried on traditions set down 75 years ago. Among the early pioneers for women’s rights and world peace at the first I.C.W. conference. which was held in Washington m 1888, were many who braved public anger in their efforts to rouse women to new thought, intensify their love of liberty and make them aware of the power of combination. Today, after three-quarters of a century, the millions of emancipated women linked to the I C.W. are recognised far and wide by statesmen and governments as “the cement that holds our modem civilisation together.”