International Women's Day Celebrated Worldwide Today

International Women's Day Celebrated Worldwide Today

The Philippines today joins the world in the observance of International Women's Day, an annual global event marked with thousands of activities to celebrate women's achievements and tackle issues affecting women.

According to the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), this year's national theme, “Women Weathering Climate Change: Governance and Accountability, Everyone’s Responsibility,” underscores the role of women as agents of change in disaster risk reduction.

“It is high time that we accentuate women’s involvement in disaster preparedness, risk reduction, recovery and rehabilitation,” DILG Secretary Jessie Robredo said in a press release.

Robredo asked local government units (LGUs) to organize events that will contribute to building gender-responsive and disaster-prepared communities. He also encouraged them to focus their activities on the implementation of the Magna Carta of Women, and the Millennium Development Goal number 7, which is ensuring environmental sustainability.

According to the International Women's Day website, online news network Rappler will feature in a live broadcast Senator Loren Legarda and other prominent women who have strong passion and connection with the environment.

A multi-sectoral forum on climate change, which will be attended by a number of women leaders including partylist representative Bernadette Herrera-Dy, will also be held at Saint Michael's College in Binan, Laguna.

Earlier this week, the local government of Calamba kicked-off their Women's Day celebration by giving roses to the female government employees in a surprise activity.

In Cebu, the local government said that there will be an information caravan on the Magna Carta for Women as well as a number of scheduled wellness and medical services for women today.

Aside from the thousands of global events that will mark this year's International Women's Day, netizens have also participate in the celebrations online.

In Twitter, “Happy International Women's Day” hit the worldwide trending list.

Google, meanwhile, launched a doodle to pay tribute to women. Instead of the familiar Google logo in the homepage, the popular search engine features today an image with symbols pertaining to women.

Clicking on the image – which contains the universal female symbol and a flower, among others – would bring a visitor to the Google search results for International Women's Day.

Online campaigns such as the one promoting a maternal health pledge aimed to empower mothers around the globe were also popular.

- Source