Joyce Banda in US for ‘Strong Women, Strong World’ conference

Malawi’s former Head of State, Joyce Banda, on Friday, December 5, 2014 attended the 10th Annual Conference of a network of women known as ‘Strong Women, Strong World’at the Metropolitan Club, One East, in New York City, United States of America.

‘Strong Women, Strong World’ was conceptualized to help World Vision International raise funds for the implementation of international NGO’s various activities worldwide.

World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.

According to the office of the Former President, this year ‘Strong Women, Strong World’ is raising money for World Vision to facilitate the provision of clean water to rural communities worldwide.

“The former Head of State (Joyce Banda) was invited to attend in recognition of continued pursuits to raise money for clean water in Malawi and Africa,” reads a statement issued on Saturday, December 6, 2014.

“Several international organizations that are working towards providing clean water to Malawi were there and the former President used that opportunity to encourage them to continue their commendable work.  The former President also expressed gratitude to all organizations helping World Vision to provide clean water in Malawi,” the statement adds.

The main speaker at the event was Alexandra Cousteau, water policy expert and environmental advocate.

Banda is a renowned philanthropist. In 1997, she founded the Joyce Banda Foundation with the core objective of assisting the marginalized of the society, especially women and children, to have access to opportunities that would help them achieve their full potential in life.

Today, the Joyce Banda Foundation is a fully-fledged and duly registered non-governmental organization (NGO), a member of both Council for Non Governmental Organizations in Malawi (Congoma) and the NGO Board.

Banda recently announced that the Joyce Banda Foundation International is now looking again at its strategy and “we have decided to ‘refine’ what we have been doing in the past 16 years here in Malawi. We are taking Joyce Banda Foundation beyond our borders to across Africa”.

The new strategy followed the recognition that the challenges facing a Malawian woman and girl child are the same for most of Africa, she said.

“It has therefore pleased the Foundation to refocus its work and rollout into Africa”, she said on September 24, 2014, during the official launch of the Joyce Banda Foundation International Africa Initiative (JBFI Africa) at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly Building in New York United States.