International Women’s Day Breakfast 2018

Waverley College proudly supports International Women’s Day on 8 March 2018.  This year's theme is #PressforProgress.

Location

Br JP Lacey Gymnasium (Braidwood entrance on Birrell Street).
131 Birrell Street
Waverley NSW 2024

Waverley College proudly supports International Women’s Day on 8 March 2018.  This year’s theme is #PressforProgress.

“Now, more than ever, there’s a strong call-to-action to press forward and progress gender parity. There’s a strong call to motivate and unite friends, colleagues and whole communities to think, act and be gender inclusive.”

The day will be marked with a special breakfast event, with guest speaker Emma Kate Wallace, Creative Director and Co-Founder of WEFTshop.

Students who are selected as SRC representatives in 2018 are invited to attend along with one female guest per student. This can be their mother, grandmother or a significant female role model in their life. This is a fantastic opportunity for the boys to celebrate and acknowledge the women in their lives who have supported them.

The event runs from 7am, for a 7.30am start until 9am, at the Br JP Lacey Gymnasium (Braidwood entrance on Birrell Street).

For your chance to win a lucky door prize, please donate to WEFTshop at the event (cash only).

Please note that an RSVP is required, click here to register your attendance. NB. This event is open to 2018 SRC Representatives and their guests.

Emma Kate Wallace, Creative Director and Co-Founder of WEFTshop

WEFTshop works directly with skilled artisans in Thailand and Burma (Myanmar) to create modern, ethical homewares and fashion accessories. Our Karenni* artisans use backstrap looms that are a longstanding but disappearing tradition in Burma’s ethnic communities. The artisans work with WEFTshop’s founder and creative director Emma Kate Wallace, a NIDA-trained costumier, to adapt traditional patterns on their looms to produce the contemporary designs. WEFTshop sells the products in Australia and online to give artisans access to a market for their textiles. Emma Kate Wallace is passionate about social justice and opportunities for women. She co-founded WEFTshop to help refugee and migrant textile artisans from Burma to build livelihoods beyond the essentials, while preserving traditional weaving skills and passing them on to more women in their communities, so that they too can earn a fair wage.

* The Karenni people are from Kayah State in the eastern region of Myanmar, where thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes because of military persecution over many years. The Karenni people are one of Burma’s ethnic minorities.

The work of WEFTshop embraces these Fair-Trade principles:

• Promoting gender equity in the work they do by ensuring the skills and work of women is properly valued and rewarded
• Creating opportunities for economically disadvantaged producers
• Transparent and respectful business practices
• Transferring skills and developing the capacity of producers
• Promoting Fair Trade in our markets and amongst our community
• Paying a fair price in accordance with principles of equal pay for equal work
• Safe and healthy working conditions
• Understanding and adhering to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
• Responsible methods of production and encouragement of better environmental practices, and
• Maintaining responsibly priced products and trading with concern for the social, economic and environmental well-being of marginalized communities.

Every piece of fabric created by the WEFTshop artisans tells a story of a women’s courage over adversity.

A selection of crafts from these artisans will be available to purchase at the event.

Emma Kate Wallace, Creative Director and Co-founder of WEFTshop

Emma with Karenni weavers