Every year, the Fashion show is an opportunity to highlight something displaced women can teach us. Last year we highlighted the harms of barriers and the benefits of community, this year we move with momentum forward to restore hope. A hope–we are reminded–that is also the object of a journey we take together. The hope we are restoring is at once audacious and an incentive to act.
The endless anger that ‘we the people’ hear on TV and read 280 characters at a time is not the reality of our lives. Our nature is not to recoil from people that are different from us, but to solve problems together as neighbors. Actions still speak louder than words and we can see that the actions of the displaced peoples here are the same as good people anywhere–filled with hope for their children and the hard work that comes with ensuring this reality.
The Women of the World Fashion Show and Gala–the 9th Annual–is on Wednesday, 6 March 2019. This event, held during the week of International Women’s Day, is a moment to recognize the wonderful and humbling diversity and diligence of the human race. We celebrate one another. We plant a flag and appreciate where we have been before taking that next step to our hoped-for future.
The ethnic fashions and the culture they convey are just a small part of knowledge available and the fun to be had at the Fashion Show. The breathless but short reconnection with youth–proud and confident–exists in each stride. And there is the desire to enjoin in the righteous fight, a passion like what rises in you when your own children are threatened, the passion to protect what’s precious in those who have been forced to leave everything behind and who have asked you and your neighbors for refuge.
And of course there is always a service component–the Fashion Show is an opportunity to give back! Sponsorship packages are available for businesses, foundations, and individuals and more information is available from info@womenofworld.org. There will be more opportunities to donate the night of Fashion Show at our “Live Services Auction.” Finally, bring your business cards because we want you to take the stories of our ladies back to your workplaces and community centers, to help these bright young women to get careers and achieve self-reliance.
“Hope is not blind optimism. It’s not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It’s not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it. Hope is the belief that destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by the men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.”
— President Barack Obama
Women of the World is excited to announce that one of Utah’s best legal minds and a fierce advocate of human rights, Erika George a Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for Global Justice at S.J. Quinney College of Law at The University of Utah, will be the Keynote Speaker at the Fashion Show. Professor Erika George was recently honored with the Legacy Award from the Black Student Union for her service to students.
Samira Harnish, the Founder and Executive Director of Women of the World and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 2018 Americas Region Nansen Award Winner will also discuss her sentiments on how our hope in humanity can be restored through service to the forcibly displaced.
2018 Fashion Show Models and WoW Executive Director, Samira Harnish.
The Fashion Show and Gala will be held at The Falls Event Center in Trolley Square and will feature over 25 different models from over 15 different countries.
Food and a cash-bar will be provided. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. and the program will get underway at 6:30 p.m.
You can purchase tickets at https://womenofworld.org/fashion19tics
We are generously sponsored by the amazing businesses below…
Aquatherm, Ally Bank, doTERRA, The Falls, and Menlove Construction
Comments