Friendship through Understanding, and
Understanding through Education and Friendship
WCI in
Special Consultative Status with the
Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)
since 2020
UPCOMING EVENTS
WCI presents
REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES
a new webinar series
Be on the lookout for Regional Perspectives Europe - third in the series
Log in to the Member site/Meetings to view recorded programs
REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES
SOUTH AMERICA

DR. MARA RÚBIA ANDRÉ ALVES DE LIMA
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
WCI celebrates International Women's Day 2022 with a new reading program called
"One Book, One WCI"
to bring our members together in the shared experience of reading and discussing the same book on a topic of interest to women globally.

About the Author
Lina AbiRafeh, PhD is a global women’s rights expert with decades of experience worldwide. She is an advisor and former aid worker with a long track record in creating positive change for women in over 20 countries around the world. She was the keynote speaker at WCI's Regional Perspective - Middle East webinar in February.
About the Book
Afghan women were at the forefront of global agendas in late 2001, fueled by a mix of media coverage, humanitarian intervention and military operations. Calls for “liberating” Afghan women were widespread. Women’s roles in Afghanistan have long been politically divisive, marked by struggles between modernization and tradition. Women, politics, and the state have always been intertwined in Afghanistan, and conflicts have been fueled by attempts to challenge or change women’s status.
It may appear that we have come full circle twenty years later, in late 2021, when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban once more. Women’s rights in Afghanistan have been stripped away, and any gains—however tenuous—now appear lost. Today, the country navigates both a humanitarian and a human rights crisis. This book measures the rhetoric of liberation and the physical and ideological occupations of Afghanistan over the twenty-year period from 2001 through 2021 through the voices, perspectives, and experiences of those who are implicated in this reality—Afghan women.
REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES
MIDDLE EAST

DR. LINA ABIRAFEH
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Monday, February 14, 2022



WCI Commemorated Thirty-Five Years as an Organization
Tuesday, May 4, 2021

Photo courtesy of Ina Ghaznavi Collins of Precious Project
How Technology is Changing Education
Thursday, April 15, 2021
with Keynote Speaker INA GHAZNAVI COLLINS
Digital Learning/ICT/STEAM Project Manager at Precious Project
WCI ACHIEVES A SPECIAL CONSULTATIVE STATUS WITH
THE UNITED NATIONS
On June 24, 2020, the Economic and Social Council branch of the United Nations (ECOSOC) conferred on Welcome Clubs International (WCI) the distinct honor of a Special Consultative Status. This status represents a landmark in our organization and offers members many opportunities to benefit and contribute to women's work internationally.
A Special Consultative Status enables WCI to actively engage with ECOSOC and its subsidiary bodies and the United Nations Secretariat, programs, funds, and agencies in several ways.

