June 2021
Greetings dear WBGFN members,
Hope you are all doing very well and staying safe and healthy in whichever part of the world you may be.
We recently recalled the achievements of the past year at our Annual Meeting held on May 20th. We had members from all around the world joining us virtually. The end of FY21 is round the corner and here at WBGFN too, we are ready to welcome a new team at the helm. We are very pleased to usher in the new President, Sara Jaffrey, President Operations, Ashikur Rahman and the other Executive Committee members.
While reflecting on the last year, it would be an understatement to say that FY21 was an eventful year! WBGFN rose to the challenge to the best of our collective ability. Delivering 40 virtual events, 20 country office visits, relocation support to 196 families, and immeasurable support through the Family Consultation Services, the whole team stepped up to ensure that programs were delivered to members. In a counterintuitive sense, this difficult year brought our global community closer thanks to the virtual platform. We loved interacting directly with many of our members in the Worldwide community.
We continued to build on our advocacy work on behalf of our membership. We met with members of senior management from various parts of WBG such as regional vice presidents from WBG and IFC, and directors of gender, ethics and legal. We highlighted various outstanding issues such as work permits for spouses across countries, better protection for survivors of Domestic Abuse, and better support for our families stationed outside DC.
We are currently working on the Spouse Wellness survey and will soon share the results with you. We very much appreciate all of you who took the time to fill out the survey.
We hope that the world moves on from this difficult crisis and there is a dawn of a new and better tomorrow. In the meanwhile, WBGFN keeps growing from strength to strength with active support from our members and our partners at the WBG.
With our warmest regards,
Padmini and Sara