THE DAWNING OF WOMEN’S TRUE DIGNITY AND LEADERSHIP
WFWPI President Yeon Ah Moon
Distinguished women leaders worldwide, gentlemen, NGO colleagues and friends, and especially young women leaders of the future,
On behalf of founder of Women's Federation for World Peace International, Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, I would like to welcome you to our annual luncheon from the bottom of my heart. Before I left Korea, she asked me send her greetings to you, and her hopes for productive meetings during this Commission on the Status of Women, well aware of the seriousness of some of the issues we are addressing.
I would like to thank Patience Stephens, Special Advisor on Education UN Women, Hazami Barmada from the Office of the Secretary General Envoy on Youth, 3 members from Executive Committee-NGO CSW NY, Betty Levy, Mary Ann Tarantula, Padmini Murthy and the members of the Organizing Committee of the Women's Federation for World Peace International. Please forgive me if I mis-pronounced your name.
Once again I would like to welcome all of you.
I am very happy to be here at this important gathering at the UN in New York to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Beijing 4th World Conference on Women in 1995. 20 years ago, almost 300 WFWP volunteers from around the world went to Beijing. Although the organization was only 3 years old at the time, it was already in the process of establishing almost 160 active national chapters.
In 1997 we received General Consultative Status from ECOSOC.
Prof. Yeon Ah Moon Speaking
You may ask, how did these young chapters have such high expectations? How could such a mobilization of talent and energy, love and sacrifice be organized so quickly? In fact it is the Founders of WFWP that instilled that sense of responsibility to the greater good- as well as the confidence that each person's unique efforts for peace are significant and valuable. Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon and Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon had explained that this Era would be the dawning for women's true dignity and leadership capacities to be realized. The history of injustice and indignity towards women was coming to a close. WFWPI members were encouraged to move forward within that paradigm, even if the signs were not always clear. It wasn't meant to be women repeating men's style of leadership, but putting forward another aspect of leadership that was missing due to the fact that it had been mostly men in those roles. In fact, how could men be expected to do a perfect job without our help?
Just last week at an important event in Korea, The WFWP Founding President said to an audience of thousands, "how can we just watch as people suffer and die?" The real hope of a paradigm shift that sets women together with men in governance and leadership is a culture of heart and vision- likened to a family. Families, bound together by their Creator, are the core, the model and the training ground of World Peace.
Now is the time to work together for our common purpose.
Prof. Moon Receiving a Gift
As Rev. Dr. Moon says, "The goal of the Women's Federation was not to be another ordinary women's organization. It does not aim to be an external, political, and combative women's rights movement mainly targeting men, which advocates expansion of women's rights, gender equality, and the women's labor movement. Rather, it is a global peace movement on a whole new level with the providential significance of realizing the ideal world as God envisaged it at the Creation.
"During the past twenty years, WFWP has carried out service projects and education programs based on true motherly love, in all parts of the global village for the firm establishment of families embodying true love and the elevation of women's status. It has achieved amazing growth and development throughout the world.
"In history up to now, we have depended on government organizations centered on men to bring about global peace. Now, however, to surmount the limitations they have demonstrated, I believe that a women's peace movement centered on a nongovernmental organization (NGO) should take root as the new system resolving problems that arise in the field.
"The work for world peace WFWP has carried out until now should not remain at its current stage (the highest status as an NGO in consultative status under the UN). It should be expanded and developed to the next stage, so that it can work together in solidarity and cooperation with woman leaders and NGOs from all parts of the world and strive to follow the path of the establishment of the ultimate world of peace.
"War and conflict arise from selfish motives -- desiring to take others' land, others' possessions, or the like, by force. On the other hand, peace arises from investing oneself for the sake of others -- that is, giving based on true love.
"Beloved woman leaders!
"Women are not here merely to help or to be protected by men; rather, they are independent individuals who, as representatives of the feminine aspect of God's nature, are meant to make men more complete and manly. Centering on true love, women are men's precious love partners. Men and women are absolutely equal in terms of value.
"Therefore, men and women do not need to confront or contend with each other, because they do not need to imitate the characteristics, dispositions or roles of the other or to covet those things and take them by force. Instead, by giving what they have to the other with true love and completing the other, they can become united as a greater whole and share in a relationship of joint ownership.
In the twenty-first century, women should play a major role in world history by serving, together with men, as one of the wheels of the engine pulling forward the construction of a peaceful world. Going beyond a century of power and technology, women will be the central axis in building a century characterized by its loving, peaceful culture, and their role will be more important than ever before.
"I sincerely ask you to choose True Mother's path, the path of a true wife, the path of true daughter, and the path of a true woman leader who will build a unified world where freedom, peace, and happiness in its truest sense, overflow."
I want to thank you all for coming here, for your courage and your concern. I hope we can have meaningful meetings that can provide real solutions and move forward together. Thank you.
