Pacific

women's chance

From VANESSA GRIFFIN in Suva Claire Slatter, the organising secre tary for the conference, said that about 35 delegates will attend from Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, the Cooks, Gilberts, New Hebrides, New Cale donia, the Solomons, Papua New Guinea and Micronesia. Aboriginal and Maori women from Australia and New Zealand will also attend.

The conference is being funded by various organisations, among them the World YWCA. A regional plan ning committee of Pacific women has been set up in Suva, to plan the programme for the conference and co-ordinate efforts across the region.

Letters and information have been sent to individuals and organisations and so far the response has been good.

To step up planning activities and raise issues concerning women, a

monthly publication. Women Speak Out, is being issued.

Efforts are being made to use the radio, press and the Peace Satellite at USP to reach women in the Pacific with information about the con ference and International Women’s Year.

One of the first areas where change is needed is in the attitudes to women held by society, that is, the attitudes of men to women, and the attitudes women have about themselves. In the Pacific, this is a particularly sensitive area, since many traditional values have been lost or threatened by change. The women’s question is often labelled as one of these threatening changes, and passed oft as ‘Women’s Lib’.

The South Pacific Regional Women’s Conference will be a chance for women throughout the Pacific to get together to discuss the issues which they feel are relevant to their situation in the Pacific, and decide the areas in which they feel change is most needed.

It certainly will be a chance for women from different areas to meet and share their ideas and experiences.