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International Women's Day Events
The International Women's Day mission is two-fold: to raise public recognition of the value of our immigrant population and to empower others through the inspirational examples of those who have achieved noteworthy success in a new country.
IWD does this by honoring up to seven foreign-born women who have made significant contributions to our county in arts & entertainment, education, healthcare, law & government, business, community service & science. Candidates must demonstrate some community service in addition to excellence in the field.
The IWD Awards Dinner now attracts 200 community members annually and receives consistent media coverage. The winners receive not only the IWD award, but recognition from their elected state representatives.
Members include CSU Bakersfield, Bakersfield College, Kern Superintendent of Schools, African Association of Kern County, AAUW, Girl Scouts Joshua Tree Council, Korean American Association of Bakersfield, Latina Leaders of Kern, League of Women Voters of Kern County, Muslim Public Affairs Council, Philippine Community of Bakersfield, Southeast Asian Community, and Valley Public Radio.
Board members meet once a month, September-January and twice in February. Members' principal responsibility lies in circulating nomination forms. Board members themselves can nominate candidates. The candidates are selected by an outside and independent panel of community leaders.
International Women's Day is not a fundraiser for any of the participating organizations.
From 2002 through 2005, the IWD event featured a speaker. We dropped this. People come to hear about the award winners. We substituted, with great success, ethnic entertainment.
2008
IWD 2008 Award Winners: Back Row: Dr. Portia Choi, Korea, Healthcare; Dr. Sophia Adjaye, Ghana, Education; Dr. Jinping Sun, China, Law & Government. Front Row: Elvira Arambula, Russia, Arts & Entertainment; Wahida Khankan, Syria, Community Service.
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Olivia Feng performing
"The Little Horse Rider"- 2008. |
| IWD 2007 Award Winners from Hong Kong, China, India and Canada (2008 Committee chair) |
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Girl Scouts Joshua Tree Council color guard member. 2007 |
| IWD Committee 2007 |
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Indian dancers ready to take the floor, 2007 |
| IWD 2006 Award winners from India, Virgin Islands, Philippines (2), Mexico and Lithuania. |
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Korean-American School dancers, 2006 |
2005 IWD Award Winners
From left to right: Dr. Sue Poh from Thailand in Health Services, Lyne Thomas from Rewanda in Arts & Entertainment, Mary Cavasos-Reyna from Mexico in Business, Dr. Eun-Ja Park from Korea in Education, Lourdes Niggle from Peru in Community Services
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Kern County inaugurated International Women's Day, in 2002. At right the presidents of the LWVKC and AAUW confer the Business Award on Laotian Hmong Beatrice Vang-Hazelton. |
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