UN Commision on the Status of Women 2005

From left to right: Shirley McClain, Shirley Sherrod, Anita LaRan, Evelyn Conley

Participants in the 2005 CSW RDLN Panel:

Julie Moss
Co-Director, Native Women’s Cooperative Project
Former Treasurer, United Keetowah Band of Cherokee Indians
The U.S. role on the world stage - How dynamics affect U.S. rural women

Shirley McClain
Executive Director, North Carolina Hunger Network
Poverty, Food Security, Welfare Reform

Anita LaRan
Executive Director, Helping Hands/Mujeres Unidas
Welfare to Work, Job Training, Health

Shirley Sherrod
Georgia Director, Federation of Southern Cooperatives
Board Member, Rural Development Leadership Network
Land, Farms, Food, Justice

Evelyn Conley
Co-Director, Native Women’s Cooperative Project
Former Assistant to Deputy Chief, Cherokee Nation
Environment, Poverty, Violence: It’s all related.

Starry Krueger, Moderator
President, Rural Development Leadership Network

Women from Asia, Africa, North America, Europe, and Australia joined the dialogue with the RDLN participants, speaking from the experience of their respective countries, cultures, and organizations. These women strongly supported the idea, suggested by RDLN, of developing a special Platform for Action for rural women on the grounds that most of the world’s women live in rural areas, yet their voices are seldom heard in policy-making arenas.

Click here to read part of an interview about the economy in Mora County, New Mexico with Anita LaRan.

RDLN organized a delegation of forty-plus women representing rural communities that traveled to the Beijing conference in 1995 and presented a series of workshops and cultural events.

Women from Ireland, Mexico, Sudan, Bangladesh (L to R)