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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

CLUB FOR WOMEN ONLY

10 February, 1998 - 00:00

Kyiv's International Women's Club was founded in 1992 by six women who came from other countries. Its first President was Ingabor Kristofassen, Belgian Ambassador to Ukraine. She was succeeded by Bunny Coufin from Canada, whereupon the post was held for three years by the charming and energetic American Sonja Strocki (currently teaching English and aerobics at the capital's International School), and finally by the Australian Ruth Blackburn, as energetic and also artistic.

"Basically, we do charity work in Ukraine," says Sonja. "In 1993, we organized a charity auction at the National Art Museum to save a unique collection of icons and other articles that require special storage and display conditions. We raised $14,000 and presented the museum with three new computers. That fall we staged an Italian movie festival at the Zoryany Theater, using the proceeds to purchase surgical equipment and materials for Children's Hospital No. 14, locally known as Okhmadet. Our traditions include Christmas fairs. This year we collected a record $73,243. We use this money to help orphans, the elderly, handicapped, and homeless."

IWC is a nonprofit organization and it has actually no income, except a modest amount collected as membership dues. The club has to seek funds, sponsors, and to work out projects. Thank God, there are enough individuals and organizations in Ukraine making impressive profits, but one is amazed that these people and entities do not seem to notice the sufferings of orphans. One is pained to watch thousands of dollars being lost at roulette and spent on drinking and women... It is a shame that money spent on charity is taxable, and the very notion of charity is not as prestigious as elsewhere in the civilized world.

Any woman can join the club and the only qualification is command of the English language. Membership dues are $35 a year plus a one time $10 fee for use of the club's library and video club.

"We're athletic-minded," Sonja continues, "we lease tennis courts and swimming pools. We have a dance group and several oral practice groups studying German, English, Spanish, and Russian. There are also applied art and literature groups, and a special group for children."

The club's other field of endeavor, supervised by its Creative Committee headed by the Canadian Constance Uzwishi, is the annual exhibiting of Ukrainian women artists. "In 1971, Linda Nockman published an essay titled 'Why Don't We Know a Single Noted Woman Artist?' which caused quite some discussions," says Constance. "The author believes that women's contribution to world art has been traditionally ignored. When I first came to Kyiv I was told that there were a lot of male artists and few represented the better half. I thought it paradoxical, knowing that women constituted over 50% of art college graduates."

This inspired Constance to organize a Ukrainian women's art show. It would be a contest, too, with a jury assessing works by their ordinal numbers, without being able to identify the authors (except when recognizing the style). An unbiased approach would be thus secured, and a unique opportunity for unknown artists, among them most probably talented ones, to display works on a par with the big names, find buyers and sponsors, but most importantly to gain confidence in their own potential.

IWC would have never been able to achieve so much, had it not been for their members' husbands sitting home looking after their children, otherwise helping and encouraging them. Attitudes toward feminism differ, but it has made its point in the West: men there do not think it unmanly to share what is scornfully referred to here as woman's work.

Long before joining the club I had closely followed its activities. What convinced me to join was a trip with its members to an orphanage in Horodnya, a town in Chernihiv Oblast. I realized that what these women were volunteering to do in Ukraine (a foreign country for many of them) was perhaps the loftiest mission accessible to the fair sex.

Photo by Vitaly Zaporzhchenko:


Members of Kyiv's International Women's Club at a Christmas charity bazaar

 

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