SPOTLIGHT ON GLOBAL WOMENS FORUM IN ZAMBIA
Leah Early, September 2019:
The three links at the bottom of this page are stories from the ICA Global Women’s Forum (GWF) trek held in November and December, 1977. This trip included forums in Italy, India, Zambia and Kenya. On this occasion, I’m spotlighting Zambia.
To be clear, these are my personal experiences in and around a forum held in Zambia. I am writing about what I can remember after over 30 plus well-worn years. And hopefully, my readers will be patient when I creatively fill in the holes in what is becoming an old web of memories.
In these stories, I use both actual names of some characters and I liberally create names for those I cannot remember or decide to protect for history’s sake. Please accept the delay in my acknowledging and giving credit where it was so duly earned and deserved. There are three dozen remarkable, hard-working staff women of the ICA who played important roles in making this set of forums in this specific trek possible. They remain remarkable women not only to me but to others in our community of service.
I decided to write a trilogy—yes, in this case, three encounters comprise one story. Therefore, the consecutive numbering of pages denotes that this is one story told in three chronological encounters. Could each be a stand-alone story? Perhaps, but I feel one story by itself does not adequately relate the generous whole-heartedness of the Zambian people.
These encounters were events one might image as delicious filling between layers of a cake—they are not the cake, but the ingredients that held the cake in position and added sweetness to its full and enthusiastic consumption and recollections.
Encounter 1: 1977 Arrival in Zambia
Encounter 2: New Perspectives from Grace
Encounter 3: Women Building the Nation