Future

The Women's Institute motto is "For Home and Country."
Its aims include:

• development of informed, responsible citizens through the study of local, national and international issues
• encouragement of good family life skills
• initiation of programs to achieve common goals
• leadership development

The need for an organization to promote these objectives is as great today as it was in 1897. In 1897 society was coping with changes resulting from the industrial revolution; today, society is coping with the rapid changes in the fields of technology and communication. People still need basic skills to remain healthy and productive in daily life.

Across Canada, society is addressing concerns of safety, healthy communities, rural revitalization, education as a way of life, values and family lifestyles. Women realize that by working together they can achieve miracles, just as their predecessors did over the years.

Provincial organizations are struggling with changes - declining membership (as fewer young women have the time to attend regular meetings), an aging population, societal changes, economic changes, political changes, changing attitudes. As they respond to these changes, they remember the vision first seen by Adelaide Hoodless - women meeting and working together to educate themselves in order to improve the lives of their families and their communities.

In 1947, at the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Women's Institute in Guelph, Anna P. Lewis, Director of the WI Branch of the Department of Agriculture stated the challenge of the future: "to work together harmoniously for the common good to determine the direction of human history." She continued, "Neither guns nor gold nor government can contribute as much as working together we can do." She concluded: "We accept the challenge. We face the future with courage and faith."

As the Women's Institute faces its second century, its members accept the same challenge. They face the future with courage and with faith.