Zonta International is a 104 year-old service organization whose purpose is building a better world for women and girls. Zonta and Rotary have some overlapping goals and a shared vision of creating a better world. Zonta’s goals are to 1) promote peace by ending gender-based violence, 2) help women and girls by ending child marriage, giving birthing kits and doing service projects, 3) support education by granting scholarships and expanding access to education, 4) fighting diseases like obstetric fistula, neonatal/maternal tetanus, and HIV/AIDS.
Zonta also works on climate change by working to reduce plastic pollution and by mangrove planting. Planting mangroves helps protect the natural embankments of river mouths, thus restoring the aquatic environment, and ultimately restoring ecological balance.
Zonta has given $11 million in scholarships to 2,075 women in 60 countries since 1990. It gives the Amelia Earhart Fellowship for PhD level aeronautical engineering and space sciences, and scholarships for women in business, women in STEM and women in public affairs. The international service projects include girls’ health and protection in Peru and support for survivors of gender-based violence in Papua New Guinea and Timor Leste, a Southeast Asian nation occupying half the island of Timor. Service projects also include climate change projects in Madagascar and ending child marriage in 12 countries in Asia and Africa.
The Zonta vision is that women’s rights are human rights, women should have access to all resources and are entitled to be involved in decision-making equal to men, and that no woman lives in fear of violence. Zonta has members in 62 countries with 1,100 clubs, both traditional clubs and e-clubs. They have partnered with UNICEF for 50 years. They do global advocacy.
Only eight states in the United States have outlawed child marriage. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont. Forty-two states allow it including Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, a person who is 16 years old can marry with parents’ consent.
Rotary and Zonta have similar goals but are different in size. Rotary was founded in 1905, has 46,000 clubs and 1.4 million members. Zonta was founded in 1919, has 1,100 clubs and 26,000 members. The nearest Zonta club to River Falls is in Minneapolis.
About the Speaker: Sally Bean is President of the Zonta E-Club of USA 3 and past International Director of Zonta International and Zonta Foundation for Women. She is retired from Ecolab and has lived in Hudson for 16 years, transferring from Janesville in 2006. In addition to Zonta, she spends her retirement time serving on the Board of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Foundation and visiting national parks.