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The mission of the International Association of Women in Fire & Emergency
Service is to provide a proactive network that supports, mentors, and educates
current and future women in the fire and emergency services. iAWFES is dedicated to improving the fire service through the involvement and success of women. We value excellence in leadership, which necessarily includes:
- Ensuring open and honest communication;
- Creating an environment in which everyone is treated with respect and dignity;
- Demanding integrity and honesty from ourselves and others;
- Reaching out to mentor, to network, to support, to advocate for positive changes in the culture of the fire service;
- Deliberately developing future leaders for the fire services who will embrace
these values.
The purpose of iAWFES is to promote and facilitate the participation of women
in the fire service. We will accomplish this by:
- Providing information and education on relevant issues to fire service organizations and individuals;
- Creating networks and providing support for women in the evolving fire service workforce;
- Advocating for constructive changes within the fire service by establishing
coalitions with other fire service groups, providing a voice for women on national policy-making bodies, and providing assistance for individual women in dealing with institutional barriers; and by
- Developing policy guidelines and recommendations for fire service and related organizations.
I pledge to respect my fellow firefighters, female and male, regardless of their ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion or creed. I recognize that I have a responsibility to my fellow firefighters as comrades and as human beings. I promise from this day forth to try to understand them and accept them, regardless of the differences that exist between us. I promise never to defame or make a derogatory remark about another member of the fire service, or to be party to such practices, and I will stop them from occurring whenever possible. We recognize that there is strength in our unity and that while our differences make us unique, we do share the common goal of being the best we can in our chosen career.
The iWOMEN Pledge was written by Christine Richie-Myers of the Oakland, California Fire Department, and adopted at the WFS conference in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1989. |
