5. How do we collaborate?

Individually, we are one drop. Together we are an ocean.

Ryunosuke Satoro

Collaboration enables us to magnify our voice, share ideas and ultimately achieve our goals more quickly and effectively. Where to begin?

We can begin by collaborating effectively within our Zonta community. Then, we can apply this experience to collaborate with like-minded organisations in the wider world.

Collaborating in our Zonta Community

There are many types of Zonta member. We have Zonta Club members who attend meetings, supporting members who do not belong to a club, e-club members that participate remotely, university-based Golden Z Club members, and our school-based Z Club members. We also have our high profile ‘honorary Zontians’ and our ‘friends of Zonta’ who provide the backbone of support to our fundraisers and events.

This is quite a community, and we are making progress with regard to collaboration. Many clubs are advocating on a district level to strengthen laws on coercive control, and area advocacy groups are being established to address more local issues. These advocacy groups take a strategic approach and are getting results.

As climate change impacts everyone, the Zonta Says NOW initiative provides an opportunity for us to engage with our wider Zonta community. We need to include the young and not so young, and seek a diverse range of views so that we can identify problems and design effective strategies and projects to solve them. We can use this experience to hone our collaborative skills so that we can take collaboration to the next level.

Expanding our influence through collaboration

There are organisations that share Zonta’s mission of empowering women and girls and many others that support climate action. There are not many that do both. We have an excellent opportunity to add value to other organisations while adding value to our own.

When we advocate for climate action, we do not need to reinvent the wheel.  If there is an organisation that is doing great work – let’s support it.

Collaborating with like-minded organisations can take many forms. It could be helping each other with our own projects or creating new projects to work on together. It could mean helping to raise awareness of an issue or contributing to a submission on a complex topic. We may march together or help out at an event. The possibilities are endless.

We may consider joining local, state and national climate action bodies to magnify our voice.

However, we need to make sure that we identify and collaborate with apolitical groups whose goals strongly align with our mission and objects.

Our mission is to empower women worldwide through service and advocacy. The objects of Zonta are:

1. To improve the legal, political, economic, educational, health and professional status of women at the global and local level through service and advocacy.
2. To work for the advancement of understanding, goodwill and peace through a world fellowship of members.
3. To promote justice and universal respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
4. To be united internationally to foster high ethical standards, to implement service programs, and to provide mutual support and fellowship for members who serve their communities, their nations and the world.

There are many organisations that we could learn from or potentially collaborate or choose not to collaborate with. Some tools to help us collaborate as well as a few organisations are shown in the resources list below. The list is not exhaustive. It is intended to give a starting point for our investigations and help us understand what the various groups stand for.

Resources

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