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“The day was absolutely fantastic, throwing together a bunch of women on a Saturday morning that don’t know each other could go one way or the other”
“I was excited, scared, terrified, happy all that the same time”
Creating a world of difference
WOMANKIND Worldwide supporter Anita Woodcock, came up with the wonderful idea of holding a personal development workshop for women. Her plan was to make it accessible to all women and that all profits would go to WOMANKIND. After months of hard work the idea became a reality on the 16th May. Almost 60 women got together at Wokefield Park – a DeVere conference venue kindly donated to us for the day. They came on their own, in pairs, in threes and in teams from all corners of England and even Dublin.
This is what Anita had to say about the event. “The idea was for the day to reflect the ethos of WOMANKIND by working with a group of women and showing them just what could be achieved with the right support."
Rebecca Stephens MBE, the first British woman to climb Everest and the first woman to climb the Seven Summits, was guest speaker. Listening to her talk of her achievements participants were inspired to set their own goals and to be really ambitious for what they wanted; know that attitude is more important than skill and that risk is part of growing.
The group was then taken through a series of personal development exercises, by Richard Pound, exploring how to influence yourself and others to change. After lunch came the outdoor exercise, six instructors from Graham Robb Associates took their groups to the ropes course for a ‘challenge by choice.’ Whilst being kitted up with helmets and harnesses some of the group went quite pale but not for long. They balanced on the low ropes courses to build confidence, supported each other through the spider’s web and then scrambled up 35 foot climbing walls, launching themselves from the tops of poles onto trapezes in pairs. The sense of achievement and genuine surprise was fantastic.
The day also included a session by Reineira Arguello, WOMANKIND programme manager for Latin America, who spoke to the group about the challenges faced by WOMANKIND’s partners around the world – and how with the support of other women they influence so much positive change. The last workshop “getting heard” saw the group equipped with ‘boomwhackers’ drumming in tune, together and grinning from ear to ear.
The great thing was that no one wanted to leave at the end of the workshop because they found challenge, achievement, learning they could apply, lots of fun and they had done it together. The day could not have been possible without fantastic help, particularly from colleagues Dan Szabunia (Field Dynamics) and Richard Pound (Graham Robb Associates).”
WOMANKIND Worldwide would like to thank Anita for holding this extremely successful and popular event and for raising almost £2,000 towards our work.
Pictures from the courses
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