125 years celebrated
Women from around
Ka¯ piti celebrated 125 years since women were granted the vote in style last week with a breakfast at Te Newhanga Ka¯ piti Community Centre followed by a walk around the council precinct and Coastlands mall before returning for tea and cake.
Dressed up in the fashions of the age, the event was organised by the women’s branch of the Labour Party O¯ taki Electorate and was joined by women from the Ka¯ piti Women’s Centre, and Kapiti branches of the Red Hats, Soroptimist and Probus.
“We’ve had a large turnout,” said one of the event organisers, Blanche Charles.
“We are celebrating the 125th anniversary of women’s suffrage and hoping that we can do better in the next few years than they’ve done so far for equality for women.”
Some of the attendees wore dresses from the suffrage era and several
FREEPHONE supported suffrage brooches from past family members.
Christine Davidson was wearing her greatgrandmother’s original brooch.
“It’s really significant because it’s the original brooch they wore because they weren’t allowed to talk about it,” said Liz Konia.
“They used them to recognise each other when they weren’t allowed to talk about it,” Ms Davidson said.