National women's conference begins June 29
From June 29 to July 3, hundreds of women will descend on the University of Western Sydney NepeanKingswood campus for an annual conference organised by and for university women. Green Left Weekly spoke to Kerry Swift, a convener, about the NOWSA conference.
Question: What is NOWSA?
NOWSA stands for Network of Women Students in Australia. It is a voluntary organisation, self-organising and inclusive of all campus women. The first NOWSA conference was held in 1987, and its official launch was in 1988. Since that time, NOWSA conferences have been held in a different state every year.
Question: How has the organising for NOWSA gone?
It has gone very well. We have been on the case since September. We started it so early because we wanted to be very organised about it. At this stage, everything is in place; we are now smoothing over the edges.
Question: What will the highlights of this year's conference be?
Nine solid plenaries of great informative speakers and discussion, and up to 80 workshops are rostered for the duration of the conference. As well there's the conference dinner on Monday night, which has the medieval "eat with your hands" theme. Tiddas will be closing the conference on the Friday. We will also be celebrating NOWSA's 10th anniversary.
There are two plenary sessions on the first four days and one on Friday. On Monday they are "education" and "herstory"; on Tuesday "arts and technology" and "indigenous issues"; on Wednesday "sexuality" and "work"; on Thursday "institutionalisation" and "international and migrant issues"; and on Friday "organising and campaigns".
UWS is a regional campus, and as a result of this the university gets strong community support from different groups. In the past regional women's issues haven't been addressed as much as they should have been, so we are hoping that at this year's NOWSA this issue will have a stronger focus.
To achieve this we have coordinated the conference in a way which encourages not only campus women but high school, TAFE, working and unemployed women to attend. During the conference we are having outreach workshops. Also community groups will be having stalls during the conference, which will be a great opportunity to share information.
Question: How does NOWSA coordinate itself?
What we are hoping to come out of the conference is for different states to set NOWSA up as an ongoing network. Smaller NOWSAs all over the country could coordinate their own activity during the year while the NOWSA collective itself could focus on organising the annual conference.
The state-based networks could gather state support for campaigns as well as organise travel pools and contingents to the conference. We have to encourage women in other states to hold fundraising events so that women could be subsidised, allowing more women to come.
Question: Why should women come to the conference?
NOWSA is the only women students' national conference, and hence is the only forum for campus women to discuss issues on a national scale. NOWSA conferences enable women to share information, to discuss and debate theoretical and tactical questions as well as to learn valuable campaign skills in a short space of time.
NOWSA conferences are very informative and inspiring, and we hope that this year's conference encourages even more women to become involved in local and national issues which affect women.
[Contact Kerry Swift and Susan Page at UWS SU on 041 869 5424 or 041 309 7264.]