St. George’s, March 8, 2010 – Female members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) are planning to meet within the next few months for a major event to build camaraderie and examine ways of providing practical assistance to women in their communities.

Ingrid Rush, head of the Women Affairs committee of the NDC, said the meeting – likely to be held in September – will be more than just a mere convention.

“We do not want a convention where women come together and listen to some nice speeches and everybody is talking and people are getting bored,’’ said Mrs. Rush, a former member of the Upper House of Parliament.

“We’ll just call it a day of supporting each other and rallying around our communities and seeing what could be done,’’ she said. “We’ll be sharing our experiences, looking at helping women who might be having problems – maybe helping them to find jobs, or with a family situation, or maybe with a child in school.’’

Mrs. Rush, Food Security Coordinator in the Ministry of Agriculture, said one of the focuses of NDC women in the past year has been visiting and helping senior citizens in institutions, such as the Cadrona Home for the Aged.

The assistance, including preparing meals for the elderly and doing house cleaning for them, must continue, she urged.

“Look out for the social aspect of our communities,’’ Mrs. Rush appealed. “We don’t want to be running around building big shrines, talking about big projects and our people are being neglected. Our emphasis will be on how to build our community; on how we support each other, how we build a family party, how we build camaraderie and just how we support all of the institutions around us as far as possible.’’