As we honor women of the world, I am grateful to the

• Women of previous generations who have opened possibilities and opportunities for me.
• Women who are models of what we can aspire to be, have and do.
• Women who have blazed trails and opened the access to new opportunities  for all women.
• Women who have encouraged, supported and prodded us to take initiative.
• Women who have created space for us to speak up and to speak out, to have a voice that is heard.
• Women who have stepped aside so a younger woman could leave her own prints.
• Women who taught us the importance of our own thoughts and contributions.
• Women of all ages who continue to light the way with age-esteem.

Bonnie Holidays age-esteem, all ages, International Women's Day, models, opportunities

Since I am attending the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations with the World YWCA it seems appropriate to share this message.

Happy International Women’s Day,

Bonnie

World YWCA Statement on International Women’s Day
March 8, 2010

Empowering Communities to end poverty and violence against women by 2015

“Some young women understand that violence against women is unacceptable, but many others are financially reliant on the men who abuse them.” This revealing comment was just one of many heard from women and young women participants of the World YWCA Regional Training Institutes held in 2009 on ‘Women Creating a Safe World’.

With women representing 70 percent of the world’s poor (UNIFEM 2008), poverty has a female face and renders them more vulnerable to violence. At least one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime (UNIFEM 2008). Violence against women is a global human rights violation and women and girls are susceptible to abuse and violence at every stage of their lives; enhancing their risk of plunging further into poverty.

The impact of violence is devastating for not only women and girls, but also communities in general. It encompasses but is not limited to, physical, sexual and physiological violence, including battering, sexual abuse, dowry-related violence, marital rape, trafficking in women and forced prostitution, labour migration, female genital mutilation and other harmful traditional practises.

Women may bear the brunt of globalisation’s drawbacks and violence; however they are also the world’s greatest untapped resource for turning the tide on economic justice. Research has shown women are more likely to repay loans in full and on time than men. It is established evidence that giving a woman access to primary education will ensure her entire family receives better health care and nutrition. This indicates that providing equal access to education, credit, property and employment for women will ensure economic justice and sustainability for all.

While the World YWCA makes its own contributions through programmes on VAW, SRHR and HIV, development, literacy and gender inequality, the movement continues to call for accountability and commitment towards actions that invest in women and girls.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) cannot be achieved without ensuring commitments contained in the Convention of Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) are also fulfilled. The BPFA can and should be used as a yardstick for evaluating the MDGs and the attainment of gender equality. Together with CEDAW and other international instruments, the goals represent a wider human rights obligation on which YWCAs can call governments to account.

Empowering communities to end poverty and violence against women by 2015 requires a global mobilisation like no other, and it calls upon all sectors to partner with governments to achieve these targets. Everybody has a duty to promote the economic empowerment of women that remove communities and countries from cycles of poverty and violence.

The World YWCA understands that a genuinely Christian perspective is against all forms of violence against women. We can no longer live in a world where women and girls remain in violent relationships to avoid a life of poverty.

We will continue to empower women and young women to end poverty and violence, thus creating a safe world for all.

The World YWCA is a global network of women and young women leading social and economic change in 125 countries. It advocates for peace, justice, human rights and care of the environment, and has been at the forefront of raising the status of women for over a century. The World YWCA develops women’s leadership to find local solutions to the global inequalities women face. Each year, it reaches more than 25 million women and girls through work in over 22,000 communities.

Bonnie Announcements, Holidays Commission on the Status of Women, International Women's Day, Millennium Development Goals, UNIFEM, United Nations, WorldYWCA

International Women’s Day is a day of global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.  Next year, 2011, will mark the 100th anniversary of this celebration.   In some countries like China, Russia, Vietnam and Bulgaria, it is a national holiday.

Source: Earth Calendar

Bonnie Holidays celebration, earth calendar, International Women's Day

A 100 year old doctor is still delivering babies in Georgia, USA.  He has delivered over 16,000 babies since 1947 when he began his practice.  It seems that everywhere he goes he is greeted by someone who he helped bring into the world.

What is his secret?  Being passionate about what you do!

Other people who have celebrated 100 years of living have shared the same important age-esteem traits.

• Purpose, meaningful activities
• Contact with others of diverse ages
• Keep moving
• Continue to learn and to exercise their mind
• Positive attitude

Bonnie A Major Birthday, In The News 100 year old, age-esteem, diverse ages, positive attitude

Today is the International Women of Color Day.  For more information on the significance and origin of this special day, visit
http://www.womenofcolorday.com/htdocs/origins.htm

Source: Earth Calendar

Bonnie Holidays earth calendar, International Women of Color Day

Is there an age limit for air travel?

When I was checking in on-line for my Continental Airlines trans-Atlantic flight today, I was asked to indicate my date of birth.  As I was scrolling down to 1943, I wondered how far back the dates went.  What is the oldest date that they offer as a choice?

It was 1880!  Thank you, Continental.  There is no doubt in my mind that more of us will push the age barriers.  It is refreshing to know that I will still be able to fly with you at the age of 130!

Bonnie Travel & Business age limit, air travel, Continental Airlines, date of birth

Do you sometimes look into the mirror and feel unloved?

Try this.  Look through and beyond.

It is very easy for us to forget as we look into the mirror that if the glass we look into had no silver in it, then we would be looking not into a mirror at ourselves but  through a window at others. – And we just might realize how well off we are and how desperately the rest of the world needs our love.

A fear of committing ourselves, of taking a step beyond our own comfort zone, often holds us back from offering to others the kind of uncompromising love exemplified by a newborn.  And it is in offering our love that we receive love.

A happy way to experience age-esteem is to

• look beyond yourself to the needs of others,
• stretch out of your comfort zone and
• find a way to share your talents and love with those less fortunate.

Bonnie Happiness at Every Age age-esteem, every age, happiness, love

With so many AgeEsteemers in multiple countries around the world, it seems appropriate to feature international holidays.  Holiday does not necessarily mean time off from work and businesses closed.  It simply means a day that has been deemed as a special day internationally.

With gratitude to the Earth Calendar which has compiled information on special days around the world.

For information concerning World Thinking Day visit  http://www.worldthinkingday.org/en/about

Bonnie Holidays AgeEsteemers, earth calendar, holiday, World Thinking Day

The following was sent by a reader.  The source is unknown.   It gives an interesting approach to  youth as a state of mind.

Youth is not a time of life.  It is a state of mind.  It is not a matter of ripe cheeks, red lips and supple knees. – It’s a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is a freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease.  This often exists in a man of fifty more than a boy of twenty.

Nobody grows old merely living a number of years.  People grow old only by deserting their ideals.  Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.  Worry, doubts, self-distrust, fear and despair – these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust.

Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being’s heart the love of wonder, the sweet amazement of the stars and star-like things and thoughts, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing child-like appetite for what next and the joy and game of life.

You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.

In the central place of your heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage, grandeur and power from the earth, from men and from the Infinite, so long you are young.

When the wires are all down and all the central place of your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then you are grown old indeed and may God have mercy on your soul.                                                                                                                             Anonymous

Bonnie Across-generations grow old, self-confidence, state of mind, youth

It’s easy to distinguish that the rugby player on the right is Matt Damon, but who is he shaking hands with?  Is that Nelson Mandela or Morgan Freeman?

Don’t  miss the film Invictus, directed by Clint Eastwood.  Morgan Freeman is exceptional in the role of Nelson Mandela.  Freeman had known for a long time that he would some day play the role of Mandela.   When Nelson Mandela’s autobiography was published in 1995, Mandela was asked who he thought could play him on screen.  He cited the name of Morgan Freeman.

In a recent interview in Switzerland published in Migros Magazine, his interviewer said, “Mandela is a wise man; he’s 91 years old.  You are also getting older and therefore also becoming wise?”   Freeman’s response was, “Careful.  I am getting older, but I am not becoming old.”

Age is an attitude.  Nelson Mandela, Morgan Freeman and Clint Eastwood share the fact that they are getting older – as are we!  They also share age-esteem with a positive attitude toward age that will keep them from ever becoming “old”.

Bonnie Fatio, AgeEsteem

Bonnie AgeEsteemers, Au Cinema age-esteem, Clint Eastwood, Invictus, Morgan Freeman, Nelson Mandela, positive attitude