Celebrating International Women’s Day

Celebrating International Women’s Day

25 February 2014

On Friday 7th March, over 150 of Ireland’s leading business women from the private and public sectors as well as the NGO community will gather in Dublin Castle to celebrate International Women’s Day with a theme of “Overcoming Adversity through Collaboration”

Leading speakers include Anne O’Mahony, Head of Concern International, Emer Costello, MEP and Orla O’Connor, National Director – Women’s Council of Ireland. 

The event will be MC’d by Mary Kennedy, TV Broadcaster, RTE and is being hosted by Network Ireland and the European Parliament Information Office in conjunction with Concern Worldwide and the National Women’s Council of Ireland.   International Women’s Day is one of the key national events for Network Ireland, a voluntary organisation set up thirty years ago to support women in business, the professions and the arts, with a growing national branch network consisting of some of Ireland’s leading women in business.    

President of Network Ireland, Mary Fehily-Hobbs who has been planning the event for the past few months stated ; “Our theme is one of collaboration and key to this is the fact that so many organisations,with a keen interest in the development of women both in Ireland and globally are coming together to celebrate this special day.  We have a number of speakers who will be sharing their experiences on achieving success through collaboration, in some instances, despite adversity and challenges.  The most important ingredient of the day will be, women from all sectors and professions coming together, networking and connecting, creating new business contacts and learning more about support systems that are out there for women today.”

Anne O’Mahony, recently appointed with overall responsibility for Concern’s activities in 27 developing countries worldwide, stated “This is a great opportunity for Concern to connect with Irish business women and share with them, the work we are doing to connect and engage with women in the developing world.  For example we will be sharing a short video of one of our key projects in Zambia where we are training women in business skills and marketing.  Our reason for focussing on educating women is that research shows us that when you educate a boy, you educate an individual, but when you educate a girl, you educate a family and benefit an entire community”

Orla O’Connor, National Director, NWCI who will also address the gathering on the day commented ; “Placing a focus on women’s rights nationally and globally is at the core of celebrating International Women’s day.  Eliminating Violence against women is at the core of realising women’s rights and needs concrete actions  on the part of all governments to ensure women can live free from fear, intimidation and violence.”

Bookings available online for non-members from Thurs 20th February on www.networkireland.ie.