WEN Wales Highlights 2018/19

Sunday November 17th, 2019

WEN Wales has once again been at the forefront of transforming Wales into a country free from gender discrimination. Our work has been central to ensuring that Welsh Government lives up to its promise of being a Feminist Government and that Wales becomes a feminist nation.

By connecting, campaigning and championing on behalf of all the women in Wales we have  increased our reach and our impact. Our work has centred around listening to our members voices and amplifying them via our policy work for example, with pushing forward our influential Manifesto on Women’s Rights with our partners at Chwarae Teg, Women Connect First and Welsh Women’s Aid.

Policy work

Nine of our organisational members endorsed our work on the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Other important policy work included our consultation responses and co-ordinating joint statements and letters to politicians both at Westminster and the National Assembly – ensuring that Women’s Rights are front and centre of the political debate.

Mentoring

Our first mentoring scheme to get more women into public life and was successful –  46% of participants being willing to stand as a candidate and 23% becoming trustees since the end of the scheme. We want to thank our mentors who have given up their time and provided excellent advice, guidance and access to our mentees. They are all truly exceptional women.

International Women’s Day

We championed women once again this year with an excellent programme of International Women’s Day (IWD) events across Wales in Aberystwyth, Mold, Swansea and Cardiff. Our programme of touring the 100 Welsh Women exhibition to share the untold stories of women in Welsh history along with our IWD events received excellent feedback and started to inform people of the pioneering women from their area.

Our thanks also go to our funders – particularly to Welsh Government who fund the majority of our work, as well as Rosa UK, Baring Foundation, Big Lottery, EHRC Wales and WCVA.

Of course, the biggest thank you goes to our network of 34k people, who are engaged with WEN via our social media channels, individual membership or organisational membership. Thank you for your continuing engagement and support.