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ASW Description
A platform for intergenerational dialogue founded on the need for the establishment of a leadership development institute to cover various faculties or areas of specialisation in order to:
i. Advance national and international development goals geared at creating a world fit for children as the custodians for the future;
ii Enable women to claim their legitimate place in society
iii Make the fraternity of men and women in society a lived experience of equality
iv Influence "business to conduct itself as if people matter"
v Review BEE to make it live up to the intended objectives of redress, empowerment, and economic participation that respects the dignity of labour
vi Institute a systematic succession plan in which the present generation learns from the one before and passes its attributes to the one coming after
Points of Discussion and concern
- Disintegration of families
- Erosion of values
- Collapse of communities
- Increase of child headed households and threats faced by children
- Absence of organized voice of parents in the child act and related legislation
- Insufficient input by women in public discourse, the shaping of public opinion and the direction society is taking
Observation made on the role of the media of the media
- The watchdog role of the media did not go unnoticed.
- While accepting the watchdog role of the media, concern was raised about its tendency to sink to levels that feed or promote gossip, churned as entertainment, and thus becoming increasingly less educational or informative.
- Steeped in the entertainment, in which gossip is the prime driver, the media tended reflect images that were worsening rather than revitalizing society's moral fibre
- Admittedly a powerful weapon, discussions pointed to a need for the media to be engaged positively for the good of society.
State of the Nation
A need to:
- Go back to the source to normalize society, "to love again" and "to hug again" one participant said
- To re-look the use of language and to discard forms that help reinforce negativity and embrace the kind that inspires a humane existence. "To re-language"
- Vote for candidates that show a good sense of measuring up to the political offices they wish to occupy
- Be certain about the kind of world "we want to live in" and we may never know that world until we think it through.
ASW descriptive elements
- non-sectarian and non-partisan in approach
- development focus
- Serve as both a nerve centre that inspires all empowerment- related endeavours through dialogue and leadership development
Resolutions/Action Points
- "The Ties that bind" adopted as the ASW payoff line
- Agreed on convening a full day's workshop to deliberate on the ASW action plan
- ASW Co-convener, Scholastica Kimaryo, offered to make a draft action plan to be tabled at the workshop and to identify and initiate discussions with potential donors
- The date was left for negotiations by participants in the early part of the year 2008.
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