Immediate past President of the World Blind Union (WBU) and Vision Australia General Manager International and Stakeholder Relations, Maryanne Diamond, recently travelled to London for a series of meetings.
With the generous support of the UK’s Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), the WBU held a number of important meetings in London to plan their work program for the next four years.
Below is a short update following each of these meetings.
WBU Fundraising Seminar, 4 and 5 February
The WBU organised a seminar at RNIB for the heads of fundraising departments of member organisations. The purpose was two-fold. Firstly, to bring together organisations who have established fundraising departments to share and learn from each other. Secondly, to use their expertise to review and add to the plan developed by the WBU Resource Generation Working Group to assist the WBU become self-sufficient.
“It was an excellent two days,” Ms Diamond said. “Those of us who are not fundraisers learned a great deal, as did the fundraisers from various countries. I personally realised how important it is for all of us to understand and be part of fundraising.”
Stephen Pigeon, a well-known fundraising consultant from the UK conducted a number of interesting and informative sessions on the first day.
There was a lot of interest among those present to stay connected and recognition for how much can be learnt from each other. Attendees felt that future meetings should include opportunities for sharing of knowledge and experiences with newly established organisations and those that are trying to grow their fundraising activities.
Vision Australia General Manager of Fundraising, Jan Chisholm took time out of her holidays to attend this seminar. Ms Chisholm enjoyed the opportunity, contributed a great deal, and in her words “got lots of great ideas to take home and try.”
WBU Strategic Planning Workshop, 6 and 7 February
The WBU Officers’ Board, along with a number of resource persons, met over two days to review and update the Strategic Plan for 2013 – 2016. This workshop was facilitated by Larry Campbell, a Past President of ICEVI and long term friend and colleague of the WBU.
An updated Plan was agreed to following the review of the 2009 – 2012 Plan, resolutions adopted at the General Assembly, ongoing initiatives commenced in the previous term and taking into account emerging issues impacting on the lives of persons who are blind or have low vision.
The new Plan consists of four Strategic Priorities which are:
- Human Rights and Representation
- Accessibility
- Capacity Building
- Information Sharing and Collaborations
It also contains one Enabling Priority which is: being an Effective Organisation.
Each priority consists of a number of strategic objectives. For example, Accessibility consists of three objectives: Information, Technology and Environmental.
Each priority has an elected international leader responsible to ensure the plan is achieved. Work will now proceed to identify leaders for each objective and the infrastructure required to deliver on them.
Ms Diamond has responsibility for the following:
- leading the Information Sharing and Collaborations priority area;
- leading the Right to Read initiative which sits within the Access to Information objective;
- leading the work on Employment which is an objective in the Capacity Building priority;
- representing the WBU at the International Disability Alliance (IDA) Governing Board
- WBU representative at the UN agencies of ILO and WIPO
Work will be done over the next three months to populate the plan with the objectives under each priority and the range of activities which sit under each. It is anticipated that the Board will finalise the plan in early June.
WBU Officers Board Meeting, 8 February
The first WBU Board meeting was held for this new term.
“Much of the meeting focused on further discussion on who will lead the various strategic priorities and objectives, appointments of WBU representatives to various UN bodies and other global organisations we work with and agreeing on the method of how we will work over the next four years,” said Ms Diamond.
“The team consists of a number of new members as well as some experienced ones. It is an exciting start to the term and we expect great work will be done.”
International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment (ICEVI) Executive Meeting, 9 and 10 February
Ms Diamond represented the WBU at the ICEVI Executive meeting. ICEVI is made up of seven regions and has five elected officers at the international level. The Executive consists of representatives from founding members, international partners who work on the Education for all Children with Visual Impairment global campaign, strategic partners such as WBU and others as well as the international elected officers.
This is also the start of a new term for ICEVI with a number of new members elected to leadership positions at the General Assembly in Bangkok last year.
“Plans are underway to determine what will be achieved over the next four years,” Ms Diamond said.
“This was my last ICEVI meeting as WBU representative as one of our new Board members, Rena Prasarani from Indonesia will take on this responsibility,” Ms Diamond concluded.