Rishabh Khanna is the Chief Impact Officer at Earthbanc and a steering committee member of ILLP (Initiative of Land, Lives and Peace ). He is driven by his calling to strike a balance between social and ecological systems. For over 10 years he has focused on applying new economic and business models which accord with the planet and all its creatures. He founded the Indian Youth Climate Network.
We have come a long way since 14 June 1991 when I took part in Switzerland’s first national women’s strike day on the Bundeshausplatz in Bern. And we still have a long way to go to achieve equality between men and women.
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), Switzerland is at the bottom of the list when it comes to wage gaps between men and women in senior positions. Women only make up about 17 per cent of the people at governance level in Switzerland, and only about six per cent of directors. The ILO reckons that for the beneficial effects of diversity to be felt, women must occupy at least 30 per cent of leadership positions. We have not reached this critical mass.
According to Amnesty International, one in five women in Switzerland is affected by sexual violence.
These statistics cry out for us to intensify our efforts for equal rights and equal treatment in Switzerland.
Having worked for many years in the humanitarian field, I cannot stop at the borders of Switzerland. Women continue to be the target of sexual violence in many armed conflicts in the world. In wars, they are often also the only remaining provider for the household, a burden that they cannot share with anybody else. Today my thoughts are with all those women around the world who face tremendous physical and psychological suffering.
Initiatives of Change Switzerland, the foundation which I lead, works on ethical leadership and building trust as a path to peace and reconciliation. Ethical leadership includes a commitment to gender balance, to diversity and to deep respect for equal treatment. At Initiatives of Change Switzerland, we are proud to say that we have reached gender balance at the governance level. In our annual Caux Forum, diversity is one of our key approaches in working creatively for peace and reconciliation. Our international programme Creators of Peace a women-led peacebuilding initiative, shows the importance of women playing in peace and reconciliation. But too often, women are left out of the decision and policy-making process.
Today, 28 years after the last national women’s strike day, I am on the road again. Sadly, we are still fighting for the same issues here in Switzerland: equal salaries for equal positions, gender balance in management and leadership, respect for women’s rights. But the fight is worth it, if not for my generation, then for my daughter’s.
#14juin2019 #equalrights #womenstrike #grevefeministe
Karen Demavivas is a Global Leadership Fellow at the World Economic Forum where she managed a community of social entrepreneurs and innovators as well as engaged investors in the Forum’s sustainable and impact investing initiatives. One of the initiatives she co-founded was a workshop series called ScaleShop, which brought together entrepreneurs, investors, intermediaries, and government representatives in a cross-mentoring exchange on the challenges and opportunities of impact investing.
Amandeep Singh Gill is Executive Director of the Secretariat for the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation. Previously, he served as India’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. He joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1992 and served abroad at the Indian Missions in Tehran, Colombo and Geneva. From 2013-2016, he served as Head of the Disarmament and International Security Affairs Division in the Ministry of External Affairs.
Morgan Gray brings an international affairs perspective and corporate communications experience to her current role, leading Digital Listening & Insights globally for Corteva Agriscience™, the only major agriscience company completely dedicated to agriculture. A strong supporter of a liberal arts education and the humanities, she joined DuPont, a multinational science company, as part of the EMEA public affairs team focusing on digital communications.
Dr Christiane Isabelle Agboton Johnson, a French and West African national, is currently Director of Special Programmes, Centre de Hautes Etudes de Défense et de Sécurité (CHEDS) in Senegal. Since 1998, she has committed herself to a wide array of church and civil society activities, especially devoting herself to peacebuilding, development and education, particularly with respect to women and children.
Jean Brown is one of the elders for Creators of Peace and has been involved with CoP since 1994. Jean is the designer of the Creators of Peace Circles which have spread to 50 countries over the last fifteen years. She authored the CoP facilitation and training manuals and most recently was the convenor for CoP's 25th anniversary conference.
Aili Channer is a student and aspiring writer. She is interested in the symbols and motifs that fascinate and preoccupy human beings across different places and times, and is passionate about the ways in which storytelling can become a means of discovering mutual understanding. As well as enjoying writing both fiction and non-fiction, she is interested in the roles art, culture and heritage can have in healing, therapy and peacebuilding. Aili was a winner of the 2019 HART Essay Prize for Human Rights. She grew up in the UK, Kenya and France.
Mike Brown has been a writer, activist and organizer with Initiatives of Change for over 50 years, with a particular vocation for reconciliation and trust-building dialogues. This has ranged from inter-racial dialogues in America, peace-building programs in Cambodia, and supporting an official process of National Healing and Reconciliation in South Sudan during 2013.
Whether it’s your first, second or hundredth visit to the Caux Palace you can’t help but be in awe of the stunning view over Lake Geneva and the surrounding mountains. You can’t help but look with wonder at the grandeur and beauty of the 1902 Grand Hotel. As soon as you venture into the Palace’s long corridors and wander into some of its 220 rooms, you discover new details such as a ceiling cornice, an imposing golden chandelier, an ornament on a period piece or a fleur-de-lis on a tile. You’d never imagine the enormity of the meticulous restoration and maintenance that takes place on a daily basis lying behind every corner of the building. I had the chance to discover what goes on behind the scenes during an IofC Switzerland team outing.
“It’s time consuming work,” explains proudly Adrien Giovannelli who is in charge of the buildings, grounds and forests, while showing us a room his team has recently renovated. “The rooms are protected as part of the Palace’s historic monument status which means we have to ensure our work is of the highest quality.”
Six weeks are sometimes necessary to renovate a room in the style of the Belle Epoque. For example, the original bathtubs have to be removed from the rooms, re-enamelled and re-fitted. Renovating the parquet floors, painting the walls, repairing the period tiling, draft proofing the windows, fitting shower cubicles, replacing tiles and varnishing the doors are just some of the numerous daily tasks performed by Jérôme, Daniel, Angelo, Bernard and Adrien.
For the last 30 years, Daniel, the Foundation’s cabinetmaker has given the wooden period furniture special attention. He works on it with passion and care. In his workshop he shows us the machines, some of which have been there since the 90s, that breathe new life into the furniture. It’s at this point that I discover that the mouldings which I so admire are the result of a complex process. A small tool stamped with the pattern is used to grind a model in iron, then to redo the wood in order to reproduce the moulding. It’s meticulous and skilled work.
Outside, Angelo, the general technician, can’t hide his enthusiasm as he explains to me how the wood-fired boiler installed in 2015 works. “A lorry leaves the wood directly in the silo. Then a rotating screw feeds the boiler with blocks of wood depending on demand.” The boiler which provides heating for the Caux Palace, the Villa Maria and the Lectorium, has enabled the Foundation to reduce its carbon footprint by saving roughly 600 tonnes of CO2 from fossil fuels per year.
To finish this trip behind the scenes at the Caux Palace, we’re given the chance to visit the springs which supply the Conference centre and some of the neighbouring buildings. In this water catchment there are two reservoirs of 200,000 litres belonging to the Foundation which are supplied directly with water from the mountain.
It’s up to Pascal to look after the water catchment area as well as the gardens for the conference centre. The landscape gardener enthusiastically explains the potential of the Caux Palace grounds. He envisages a future where there are mini-gardens (for example, English and Japanese) for visitors to enjoy. To start with he has given himself the task of highlighting the view of the lake and laying the foundations for a revitalised exterior.
The next time I visit Caux Palace and admire the view from my bedroom balcony, I’ll think about all this hidden but essential work to ensure the beauty of the place.
Would you too like to contribute to the up-keep of the Caux Conference and Seminar Centre? To support this important work, donate here.