THE GLUE OF OUR COMMUNITY – Isobel Ellul-Hammond MBE This year’s theme for Gibraltar in celebrating International Women’s Day is ‘Inspiring Change’ and today I will unashamedly remind all, with respect to our wonderful men, how the women of Gibraltar have inspired so many of the positive changes we see in our community. I go no further than in highlighting one of the means by which this has been achieved, through our ‘third sector’. A clumsy term used to describe the voluntary and charity work which makes community, ‘big society’ and highlights issues that need addressing to enable and influence social policy. However, I prefer to call it the glue that keeps our community together. Traditionally, our third sector has been driven mainly by women as fewer were in paid employment and not tied down to fixed hours at the workplace, therefore they were more readily available to take up voluntary work to either fulfil a sense of empathy or to keep busy. Many community initiatives and support networks in Gibraltar have been started by women who have felt the need to fight difficult times and survive them so much more easily by working as a team rather than alone; the inception of the Gibraltar Housewives’ Association, the Environmental Safety Group and Cancer Relief spring to mind, to name but a few. For other women, the desire to support those who are going through what they already have strengthens the community and raises awareness; the Alzheimer & Dementia and Multiple Sclerosis charities and Nazareth House rehabilitation services, among so many others, are shining examples of this. When shaping our society and influencing social policy-making, women have been central to this and we need look no further than the charities which ran Mount Alvernia, looked after our mentally ill in the community, offered support and rehabilitation for addicts, support and respite for our disabled, company to the lonely and sick in hospital. These are services that over the years have been taken over by the state, but the foundations lie with the caring nature of women who have extended their vocation into a sense of social responsibility, this inspires and instigates change. But it does not end there; the next phase has been the successful lobbying of policy-makers, by women-led associations, over the improvement and increase in services and resources when dealing with the disabled, the elderly, specific illnesses, rehabilitation and so much more. There is no denying that women have a natural sense of empathy and social responsibility. We tend to feel that a negative experience should be converted into a positive, shared with others so they too do not suffer the same. This provides the courage to do something about the issue and to try to instigate change for the better. And what courage a bereaving mother, Richenda Collado, has shown to inspire a change to our traffic laws on placing speed cameras at traffic hot spots and the introduction of penalty points to driving licences. I am inspired.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 15:26:14 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015