REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, YOGYAKARTA -- Yogyakarta, a special regional administra
tion in Java Island, is ready to host the 35th General Assembly of International Council of Women (ICW) and National Congress of 1,000 Indonesian Women Organizations that will be held until September 20. Thousands of participants, including some prominent women figures, would attend the back-to-back event organized by Indonesian Women Congress (KOWANI) in association with 35 state-owned enterprises.
"This is one of the world's trusts to Indonesia as the host, so the event must be successful," chief of the event's organizing committee Gatot Subagio noted here on Tuesday.
ICW President Kim Jun-sook from South Korea as well as delegations from many countries have arrived in Yogyakarta to attend the event to be opened by Indonesia's President Jokowi Widodo on Thursday. The committee had put up a huge tent at the Grand Inna Malioboro Hotel, Yogyakarta, for the opening ceremony of the event, which will be attended by some 1,500 people, as well as media center that provides a high-speed internet service operated by PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia and Antara News Agency as the official media partner, both are state-owned companies.
The series of ICW's events had been started by board of directors meeting on September 11 to 12, opening event on 13 and followed by National Congress of 1,000 Women Organizations on 14. Sessions of ICW's 35th General Assembly with a theme of "Transforming Society Through Women Empowerment" would be held on September 14 to 18, followed by a field trip to Borobudur Temple in Magelang, Central Java on September 18-19, where the outcomes of the meeting would be declared in a tourism village complex operated by 20 Indonesia's state-owned enterprises.
As a side event, the committee has organized an Archipelago Bazaar, where the participants and guests could shop and purchase clothes of various fashions, traditional textiles, accessories, jewelry, craft, food and beverage, and many others from Indonesia, that could also be bought by online to offline "O2O" method.
The 35th General Assembly of ICW is held in coincidence with the commemoration of the 130th anniversary of ICW established in Washington DC on March 25, 1888. ICW is a part of the UN Women in empowering women across the globe.
Meanwhile, Chairperson of the Indonesian Women's Congress (Kowani) Giwo Rubianto Wiyogo explained she needed at least six more years or two more periods to be elected President of the women organization. She gave an example of Indonesian woman Kuraisin Sumhadi who had been the President of ICW for the period 1994-1997, after two periods or six years before serving as Vice President of ICW.
"It is impossible to become the ICW President director because three years ago in Turkey I was elected as the communication coordinator of the ICW's Permanent Membership Committee. Now I can only be elected for a seat in the board of directors," Giwo said here on Tuesday.
The 2015-2018 ICW Board of Directors currently consists of ICW President Jungsook Kim (South Korea), five Vice Presidents namely Elisabeth Newman and Hean Bee Wee (Australia), Doris Bingley (Malta), Lina Liu (Taiwan), and Christine Knock ( New Zealand), ICW Treasurer Martine Marandel (France), Secretary of ICW Nabiye Isin Atala (Turkey), and two members of the ICW Board of Directors Fatos Inal (Turkey) and Jamal Gibril Hermes (Lebanon).
In addition to the Board of Directors, in the ICW structure there are also Permanent Committee Members, regarding the status of women, sustainable development, general well-being, communications, and social issues.
Two Indonesian women who were also administrators of Kowani, Giwo Rubianto and Hadriani Uli Silalahi, each as Coordinator of the Standing Committee on Communication and the Coordinator of the Standing Committee on Sustainable Development.
In addition there is also an Indonesian woman, who is also an administrator of Kowani, namely Charletty Choesyana Taula who is advisor on the ageing affairs in the Standing Committee on Social Issues.