Jo Eady from the 15th Global Summit of Women, Mexico City – Leading the 21st Economy.

Jo Eady has recently won an award for ‘www.shopregional.com.au’, due to be launched in October 2005. She is General Manager of the Queensland based Rural Women in Business (RWIB)Global Learning Centre – www.rwib.com. She writes movingly to her RWIB members from Mexico City:

I am in Mexico City at the moment and have just been to the opening ceremony of this Summit. With over 900 people from over 45 countries and being here on my own, I felt really included and inspired at the ceremony. Here are some notes and key things that hit home for me. I hope by reading these you get to feel as included as what I felt at the event.

The ceremony opened with a simple and beautiful song from a young indigenous Mexican woman. It was warm and welcoming. The chair of the summit spoke about her vision for a successful forum, the newly elected young female vice president of El Salvador and the Vice pres of the Bahamas. They have achieved lots of firsts for themselves and for women in their countries. And the Prime Minister of Mexico made a key note address.

Here are some things the speakers said that hit home for me:
-The future can be defined by you
-Global futures can be defined by you
-Diversity is about all of us
-We need to crack solutions to the same problems that all women across the world face and we need you to help with this
-No woman needs to start from zero
-We are all experts and have something to share
-Every person counts and deserves a chance at success
-There is no point blaming the men, we named them
-The prime ministers opening words were, Mexico receives you with open arms, love and hope all of you are leaders of the 21st economy
-The lines that joins the sky and the earth rests upon womens shoulders
-Politics has a human face
-Change your economic reality
-Much of the worlds success has to do with women, proactive, get together, sharing and this is only how we can take steps forward.