International Women's Day

Celebrated every year on March 8th, International Women's Day is a major day of global celebration for the great contributions of women to society. It is a day in which the political and social awareness of women's struggles are brought out and examined in an optimistic light. In 1975, which is marked as the International Women's Year, the United Nations officially sanctioned International Women's Day, cementing March 8th as an important date to promote awareness of women's issues.

International Women's Day in Santa Fe de Guatuso is a celebration organized and hosted by the Santa Fe Women's Group. The Women's Group invites women from all over the Guatuso region, as well as other established women's groups, to take part in the event's activities. Such activities include speakers who bring up important women's issues. In 2006, the Women's Group invited a doctor and a nurse to talk about important women's health issues, such as examining yourself for breast tumors as well as various reproductive health issues. Other speakers included a social worker who talked about self-esteem, a rural development worker who talked about AIDS and other sexually-transmitted infections, the police who talked about domestic abuse issues, as well as a speaker on female self-defense.

See how the Santa Fe Women's Group achieved energy indpendence with its biogas project

Other festivities included a number of different skits that displayed the theatrical skills of women in the community. Also, an elaborate lunch was served with local flavors of rural Costa Rica, and they also had a cafecito, or coffee break, that featured the bread that the Santa Fe Women's Group learned to make in its breadmaking course.

The 2006 International Women's Day event in Santa Fe, the first of its kind, was such a success that the Women's Group plans on making March 8th an important day for women's issues every year. Even though some 45 women from the rural area attended the International Women's Day event in 2006, the Women's Group is committed to making sure that 2007 is an even bigger event. If you have any ideas ideas of topics to cover in this International Women's Day event, or if you would like to come to Santa Fe to participate, please contact us.

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