GREAT LAKES: Four-day gender festival ends with call for cooperation

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

DAR ES SALAAM, 12 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - Some 1,000 participants from Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and other countries ended their 7th Gender Festival on Friday with an appeal for greater cooperation among women, instead of undermining each other.

"As women, we must find a way of uniting our people as one of the means of making them participate in the development of our countries," Rose Wabwire, a Member of Parliament for Busia in Uganda, said at the end of the meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzanian.

Mary Rusimbi, the executive director of the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme, which organised the four-day festival along with the Feminine Activism Coalition (FemAct) said delegates discussed maternal health, HIV/AIDS, land and democratic issues that affect all people, regardless of their gender, political or religious affiliation.

She said the high level of attendance was an indication that people had begun to understand gender issues.

[ENDS]