THE IWG also stepped out of the boardroom and paid a visit to 20 disabled women in Putrajaya for a worthy cause, where Lydia La Riviere, who is a consultant on gender and diversity, educated the women in self defense for the disabled.

“It is our first attempt here at helping disabled women in sports,” said Lydia, who is also wheel chair bound after an accident some years ago.

Lydia is active within the Women’s Movement since the early seventies and the Disability Movement since the early eighties (since a car-accident in 1982). She studied psychotherapy at the University of Amsterdam, has an MA in social science (especially disability studies and social and community studies) at the University of Leeds and De Montfort University at Leicester.

She’s also a licensed feminist self-defense and martial arts teacher (3rdDegree Black Belt in Karate, Brown belt Aikido) and has a longstanding professional career in various countries and (academic) institutions, among which: working with women in Africa and the EU, at several EU universities and working on the issue of intersectional discrimination (gender, disability, sexual orientation, race) within various educational training centers and universities throughout Europe.