Participants at FAWCO's biennial conference celebrated International Women's Day with a variety of empowering activities. The conference attendees began the day with workshops on topics such as active aging, maternal health, climate change, and The FAWCO Foundation's charity updates. The morning's first conference session immediately followed and featured an inspirational address from U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva Betty E. King.

Ambassador King then accompanied the FAWCO women in standing on the bridge over the Aare River on the Kornhausbrücke in support of Women For Women International's Join Me on the Bridge campaign. This global act of solidarity was created to bring awareness to violence against women in war-torn countries.

The Join Me on the Bridge campaign began in 2010 when the Country Directors of Women for Women's programs in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo had an idea that became the impetus for this global campaign. These two countries have been torn apart by the worst atrocities of war that the world has seen in recent years, including the commonplace rape and torture of women as a weapon of war. In 2010, women from opposing sides of war in these communities came together on a bridge adjoining the two countries. These women met to say "No" to war and "Yes" to peace and to show that they could build bridges of hope for the future. In its first year over 20,000 people took part with 119 events in 19 countries. (www.womenforwomen.org)

The International Women's Day festivities continued with an afternoon panel discussion entitled Moving Mountains Women and Politics: Switzerland. The panel was comprised of four women, all of whom are national-level, Swiss politicians - Claudine Esseiva , General Secretary of the FDP Women Switzerland, and National Council Members Margret Kiener Nellen, Christa Markwalder, and Barbara Schmid-Federer. Fritz Reimann, TV-Journalist at SRF Swiss Radio and Television, will serve as the moderator. More workshops followed in the late afternoon, covering local club strategies and repatriation to the United States. The grand finale was the evening's The FAWCO Foundation's Gala, entitled Knights in White Satin, in which members raised money to support the foundation's global charities throughout the year. (www.fawcofoundation.org)