5 DAYS THAT CHANGED MY LIFE By Lynn Gillman
In late August 2019 at a Board of Directors meeting, Marilyn Libin, CHW National President, announced that the World WIZO General meeting to be held January 2020 in Tel Aviv was to be an EGM (Enlarged General Meeting) and it would be to launch WIZO’s Centenary. Encouraged by Marilyn to attend as one of CHW’s nine delegates to the WIZO EGM, I decided to go by the time I sat down on the train to return to Ottawa. To be honest, I felt I needed to go as I had not visited a CHW project in a while and we would have time to arrange a visit plus as World WIZO is one of CHW’s partners, it would be good to get an inside view. As well, leaving Ottawa in the middle of the winter for sunny Israel was certainly appealing. I was about to learn that WIZO had “pulled out all the stops” for a once in a lifetime experience. I had no idea the scope and effort of WIZO for the EGM but soon realized very quickly while walking into the Grand Ballroom at the Hilton in Tel Aviv with the delegation from CHW, that this was going to be a special experience. Over 770 women from across the world were attending as either a delegate or observer. You saw huge swaths of women from every corner of the globe waving their country’s flag. I think what hit me immediately was that this is not our grandmother’s WIZO but a modern women’s organization taking on the commitment to change the lives of those in need in Israel.
CHW Delegation and Staff attending the World WIZO EGM in Tel Aviv. (L-R): Elayna Latsky, Reeva Waksberg, Brondell Shapiro, Cathy Williams, Marilyn Libin, Daniel Pike, Alina Ianson, Debbie Eisenberg, Lynn Gillman, Roslyn Joseph 22
ORAH Magazine Summer 2020
