The Bishop of Dover, the Right Reverend Dr Rose Hudson-Wilkin, Natalie Elphicke MP, and Kathy Batts, a prominent Channel Swimmer, are among the guest speakers at Dover District Council’s first International Women’s Day Speakers Conference on Friday, 6 March 2020.
International Women's Day on 8 March celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women around the world - while also marking a call to action for accelerating gender equality.
An equal world is an enabled world and the conference aims to motivate and inspire senior female students from secondary schools across the district. The day will bring everyone together, encourage networking and show what can be achieved.
In 2007, Reverend Rose Hudson was appointed as a Chaplain to Her Majesty the Queen and in 2010, she became the first female Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons. She was installed as the Bishop of Dover at Canterbury Cathedral on 30 November 2019.
Natalie Elphicke OBE is a finance lawyer and Conservative Party politician. At the 2019 general election she was elected as the first female MP for Dover. She received an OBE in the 2015 Queen's Birthday Honours for services to housing.
Kathy Batts is renowned in the world of open water swimming and fulfilled a lifelong ambition to swim the channel solo in 2013 at the age of 53. She also swam the Channel as part of relays and taken on many of the world’s other great open water swim events.
Other speakers include Councillor Sue Chandler, Cabinet member at Kent County Council and a Dover District Councillor, Superintendent Emma Banks of Kent Police, and Barbara Buczek, Chief Commercial Officer at the Port of Dover.
Cllr Sue Chandler said: “I am really looking forward to welcoming our local guest speakers and students to Dover District Council’s International Women’s Day conference. The event will focus on celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women while also marking a call to action for accelerating gender equality. A gender equal world is an enabled world and it’s going to take everyone to think and be inclusive – all the time, everywhere.”
On Monday 9 March, DDC is hosting an IWD Career’s Forum for invited students and their peers to visit Dover’s co-innovation centre for careers advice, while Tuesday 10 March will see an IWD event hosted by DDC for women from across the district who work in the voluntary sector, designed to show the district’s volunteers our appreciation, and giving them the opportunity to network.
The IWD 2020 campaign theme #EachforEqual is drawn from a notion of 'Collective Individualism.' We are all parts of a whole. Our individual actions, conversations, behaviours and mindsets can have an impact on our larger society.
Posted on 03 March 2020