Emily Thornberry visits Llanelli from Llanelli Online on Vimeo.
THE Co-operative Women’s Guild of Llanelli met on Saturday (Mar 10) at Llanelli Town Hall for an event to celebrate International Women’s Day and to celebrate 100 years since women gained the right to vote.
Guest speaker at the event was the Rt Hon Emily Thornberry MP, Shadow 1st Secretary. The MP made references to the death of Jo Cox and said that the best way to celebrate the MP’s life was to fulfil her legacy and fill Parliament with more and more female MP’s.
The speech was politically rich and the MP issued a rally cry for Labour to target the seats they lost at the election as ‘people were crying out for another way’. She said that Labour were ‘ready to take those seats and to take over government’.
The MP said that there was still a need for more women MP’s. She said that it was still ‘not good enough’ and that it was ‘time to achieve full representation in the House of Commons’ and for ‘Labour to lead the way’.
There was an acknowledgement of the success of the Welsh Assembly in leading the way on gender equality in her speech and she said: “This generation of women would not just demand gender equality but they would make it happen.”
Speaking about historical struggles for women she said that women owed a debt to past generations of women who fought without recognition and publicity. She said it was hard to explain to those women that women still do not have a living wage and that there were 4 million children living in poverty.
Other speakers included Nia Griffith MP, Lee Waters AM, Joyce Watson AM and Rachel Gegeshidze of Spice Innovations Limited. The Llanelli Art Society were also present and displayed a number of their paintings around the room.
The Co-operative Women’s Guild centres on cultural and social activities, International events, full democratic rights, visits and demonstrations and consumer affairs.
Speaking after the event Cllr Devichand said: “It has been a wonderful day and we were delighted to have the Shadow 1st Secretary here to join us. All the speakers were very interesting and showed what talented women we have in this country. It was also good to be able to include men at the event for the first time and I am sure they would have gained from it. I would like to thank everyone who attended on this special day for the Co-operative Guild.”
For more information on the Co-operative Guild contact Cllr Tegwen Devichand Email Tdevichand@hotmail.com
