The GREAT Inititiative - Gender Right & Equality Trust

Published in Cambridge News on 5 March 2012

By Alice Hutton

Talks by a campaigning journalist and a former head of Cambridgeshire police are among the events taking place in Cambridge this week to celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD).

Broadcaster and Observer columnist Mariella Frostrup will lead the annual IWD lecture at Downing College on Thursday to discuss her work with the Gender Rights and Equality Action Trust (Great) Initiative, which promotes gender equality, including through grass roots and educational projects in Africa.

The Norwegian-born campaigner, 50, who is a trustee for Great, has been active in the charity sector for two decades, but campaigning for women’s rights and gender equality has become her main focus.

She has made several trips to Africa to meet women and young girls in their communities, observing the realities and inequalities of the lives they are forced to lead.

On Saturday, Anglia Ruskin University will feature a collection of conversations entitled No Going Back! What Next for Women Today. The keynote speech will be delivered by Julie Spence, who was Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire from 2005 to 2010 and is current president of the British Association for Women in Policing.

And on Thursday, March 22, Prof Carol Robinson will lead a talk at Robinson College on gender relations entitled Finding the Right Balance.

The events are part of the third annual IWD celebrations in Cambridge being organised by more than 20 local organisations including Cambridge University, Anglia Ruskin University, the city council, Cambridge Women’s Aid and Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre.

Sigrid Fisher, head of equality and diversity at Cambridge University, told the News: “It is a joint effort by lots of local and national organisations to highlight and celebrate the achievements of women. It is important to recognise what they have accomplished as well as highlight the ongoing issues we still face.”

Other guests staging talks, holding exhibitions and running stalls at Anglia Ruskin on Saturday will be Kat Banyard from UK Feminista, performance poet Hollie McNish, Feminist Action Cambridge and Prof Dame Athene Donald of Cambridge University.

The Annual International Women’s Day Lecture by Mariella Frostrup is at 5.45pm on Thursday in the Howard Theatre, Downing College.
See https://annualiwdecture2012.eventbrite.co.uk.

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