• The Conference of Social Welfare Experts for the Countries of the Middle East was held at the Grand Hotel of Beit Mery between September 18 and 9, at the invitation of the Social Services Division of the United Nations, addressed to a number of workers in this field from Egypt, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan. The conference was also attended by representatives of UNESCO, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Health Organization, the Refugee Relief agency, and the Near East Foundation.
The conference was directed by Miss Henderson, director of Social Services at the United Nations, and was attended by 28 members, 12 of them ladies. Among the Arab women figures who took part in this conference were Mrs. Asiya Wahbi, president of the Iraqi Women's Union; Mrs. Sara Jamali, wife of the Prime Minister of Iraq; Mrs. Zahia Marzouk for Egypt; Miss Adma Bayoud and Dr. Jamal
Karam Harfush for Lebanon; Miss Suad al-Ajlani for Syria; and Miss Hind Husseini for Jordan.
The Conference of Social Welfare Experts for the Middle East took up subjects concerning the methods followed in preparing social specialists and assistants, what the course of study ought to include, and the aims it seeks to achieve.
On this occasion the representative of The Woman's Voice asked the two delegates of Iraq for their impressions of this conference,
and Mrs. Asiya Wahbi answered as follows:
"It pleases me to say that the Conference of Social Welfare Experts for the Middle East, in which we took part, has succeeded very well in laying the foundations for the training of social workers, and has drawn up strong plans which I hope will be applied in every country, so that well-being may embrace the whole world and neglected humanity may rise.
"The atmosphere of the conference was friendly in the extreme, which made us feel as though we were among our own family and brethren. Many questions were treated concerning the problems of social workers, and it ended with useful recommendations, soon to be announced, addressed to the governments of the countries of the Middle East."
And Mrs. Sara Jamali, wife of the Prime Minister of Iraq, said:
"I pin great hopes on the Conference of Social Welfare Experts, for it is the way to raise the standard of living in the Arab countries through the training of assistants to the specialists in the various fields of work."
The members of the conference promised to strive, each with his own government, for the application of the conference's resolutions and to work to spread its recommendations as far as may be...
In answer to a question put to her, Mrs. Sara Jamali showed great optimism over the progress of the cause of the Iraqi woman, seeing that her husband, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, is among the greatest champions of this cause and supporters of the Iraqi woman's winning of her political rights... And this was likewise confirmed by Mrs. Asiya Wahbi, her companion, and president of the Iraqi Women's Union.
So perhaps we shall soon be surprised by news from Baghdad to the effect that the Iraqi woman is the third Arab woman to gain and to exercise her full political right...
• At this season of every year, as summer comes to its full ripeness,
Mrs. Asiya Wahbi
From the left: the two delegates of Lebanon, Dr. Jamal Karam Harfush and Miss Adma Bayoud, the United Nations expert, then Mrs. Sara Jamali, then the United Nations experts