International Women's Day approaches

In 1975, during International Women's Year, the United Nations began celebrating March 8 as International Women's Day. Please take a moment to listen to Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon as he speaks in honor of this day.



This has been a year of upheaval and reflection for me.

I work to stretch my mind around the circumference of this world.
There are so many issues concerning the human family.
But I also need to grasp the ramifications of these for my own little world.

My little neighborhood, my circle of friends,
my dear family...
This is what I touch and am touched by.
This is where I raise my children.

I believe that to reach the depth of my own capacity
to understand global issues,
I need to find a way to connect them to my own...
To empathize with what is happening in the
lives of women all around the Earth,
I need to gaze, long and deep,
through the intimacy of my direct experiences.

What about you?
Technology makes issues, like woman's rights, increasingly prominent to a worldwide audience. In principle, this is nothing new: Humans have always needed to bridge the gap between direct experiences and stories they heard from others.

How do you connect the big, wide world of indirectly known experiences with your little, directly experienced world?