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Tree planting drive to honour women

International Women’s Day: Elaine Butterfield, centre, head of the Women’s Resource Centre, proclaims the global day of women’s solidarity, with celebrations from 12.15pm today on the steps of City Hall (Photograph by Akil Simmons)

Women who helped transform Bermuda are to be honoured with a tree-planting drive, part of several events in the run-up to International Women’s Day this weekend.

Women’s solidarity will be celebrated today on the steps of Hamilton City Hall from 12.15pm, on the theme of women’s rights for an equal future.

Elaine Butterfield, director of the Women’s Resource Centre, flanked by representatives of organisations around the island said, yesterday, the island would join the rest of the world in the commemoration of the day on Sunday.

The group chose to highlight five Bermudian women pioneers who helped to transform 20th century Bermuda.

The trailblazers were Adele Tucker, cofounder of the Bermuda Union of Teachers and founding secretary of the Sunshine League; Gladys Morrell, founder of the local Woman Suffrage movement; Roslyn Williams, of the Progressive Group and the Committee for Universal Adult Suffrage; trade unionist Barbara Ball, a pioneering woman doctor, and Dame Lois Browne Evans, the island’s first woman barrister and the first woman Opposition Leader in the Commonwealth.

However, Ms Butterfield emphasised: “This is not a zero sum affair. Men also benefit from progress to ensure that both sexes share equal rights.”

The group was joined by Eugene Dean, head of Greenrock and a member of the Bermuda Climate Action Network, who asked for trees to be planted either this weekend or at a significant date in tribute to women who made a difference.

Tree locations, with the names of the woman honoured, can be sent by e-mail to vision2020@bnt.bm.

A map of locations will be drawn up and posted online.