While traveling in Beijing during the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, I boarded a bus and grabbed the first empty seat. After getting settled, I turned to two young women sitting in my row and asked them, “Where do you come from?” They responded, “Lithuania.” Immediately, I thought of Sister Barbara Valuckas, a classmate of mine of Lithuanian decent, who had produced English lessons being televised in Lithuania. I asked if they had heard of English lessons with Sister Barbara. One woman immediately said “I watch Sister Barbara every day and do all the assignments she gives us."
I was then asked by an American woman in the row in front of us if I was a Catholic Sister and to which community did I belong. I identified myself as a School Sister of Notre Dame from New York. At that point, another young woman from six rows further away stood up and said, “I’m a graduate of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland in Baltimore (now Notre Dame of Maryland University), and I’m from Fiji.” She was a member of the official Fiji delegation to the Fourth World Conference on Women. The Lithuanian women were representing a women’s NGO group from their country.
I was there with one SSND from Guam and three SSNDs from Japan.
All of us, from four different countries and different continents, met in Beijing to speak on behalf of women’s concerns: education, economy, human rights, poverty, media, and the girl child. The young women on the bus were there, I am sure, because of the education they had received from SSNDs, and they were able to represent other women from their countries at a World Gathering.
As You Are Sent says, “The gift of our internationality sharpens our consciousness of universal needs and calls us to foster within ourselves and others a responsible concern for the people of the world.”
The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was adopted unanimously at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women (4-15 September 1995), held in Beijing, China, with representatives from 189 countries. The Platform reflected the international commitment to achieving the goals of equality, development, and peace for women throughout the world.
