The Women in Maritime Association, Caribbean, known as WiMAC is a fledgling organization that was launched only 3 years ago. But in that short time, it has gathered women from countries all over the Caribbean who either have a leading role within the maritime sector, or those who have careers in the industry, committed to increasing the performance, participation and contribution of their female colleagues.
They are in Belize for their 2nd Annual conference, and they're being hosted by the Belize Port Authority, which is also one of their members. It's a 4-day event that the participants have set aside to discuss their shared challenges of gender inequality in the sector, and how they can hope to achieve better balance.
We stopped by for day 1 of the conference, and we spoke with the organization's president, about the issues they want to tackle in a multi-million dollar industry. Here's what she had to say:
Claudia Grant - President, WIMAC
"This is our second regional conference following the inaugural one in 2015 and what we are doing at this conference is that we are progressing our agenda in terms of empowerment of women in the Maritime sector. In terms of empowerment, we are looking not only at capacity building but we are looking at emotional support. One of the things that we expect to achieve at this conference is to develop a mentoring model for the WIMAC, to apply to support women. We are also looking at gender mainstreaming. How we can partner with our male counterpart in terms of developing the Maritime sector, not male and female but working together. So, a mainstreaming model would seek to sensitize all concerns that we can work together. In some countries, we have progressed. It was mentioned that we are seeing a part of 60 percent in middle management in Jamaica. From the delegates, we have at this conference you can see that many of them are at their organizations. In fact, we did a survey in 2014 and it showed that we had women at the helm of several organizations in the Caribbean; Harbour masters, Merlin Martin as your own Port Commissioner is one of them. We have women who are captains of ships, women who are managers of the maritime administrations, and women who are senior managers in port authorities. So, the progress is happening, but we are here to ensure that it continues and that our women are stringed and positioned to contribute more fully."
Reporter
"Do you think that at this current stage the equity is shifting or is it still imbalanced?"
Claudia Grant - President, WIMAC
"In the Maritime sector, unfortunately it is still imbalanced but it is shifting and the evidence of it, is the women in this room today. We will be looking at developing a mentoring model for WIMAC. We will also be looking at developing an instrument to work with industry. Why the industry? In terms of sensitivity to gender issues because gender is not just dealing with women issues but with issues of men and with women, both genders. We are talking about parity. So, I think much of the issues that we face, even if with this association, have been branded as a feminist organization, is lack of awareness of exactly what we are about. So, I think it's important to engage men in the dialogue so they understand and so we can work better together."
Karine Langlois - PR Officer, International Maritime Org.
"I'm here as the communications officer to raise awareness of the program, to raise visibility of women in Maritime and bring overall support to the initiative. As part of the communication team, we want to raise awareness of this issue all the time. So, we are for the first time branding the program, the IMO gender program, so we are going to produce a film about women in Maritime, what's been achieved so far, how successful has been the program and what are the challenges we face in the future. So, part of my being here is to produce this film and to interviewing participant and to interviewing high level women, even men as well because it's a gender balance and also launching this new branding of the program."
The conference continues tomorrow and Thursday, and it then wraps up on Friday.
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