Inspirational women

SHE started out with just the notion of a global book on women, but pretty soon, Zerbanoo Gifford found it growing beyond all scope. She had been chosen for a fellowship and received a sum of money and thought she'd love to carry out the project closest to her heart. As she explains, she felt the book would be a valuable resource.

"I received a letter saying the board of NESTA (National Endowment of Science, Technology and Arts) would like to give me a fellowship and I was to make a proposal saying what I wanted to do," says the 57-year-old, who is an author and social campaigner.

"I felt that having been in politics, an editor and a director of Anti-Slavery International, and having just started the ASHA Foundation (a charity fostering diversity) that what I really wanted to do was look at where women were globally. I wanted to look at women in every discipline and every community and see where they were and really record that at the end of the 21st Century, so it was a mammoth research programme and the book is just a very small part of it."

Her brief initially was modest - to find and interview 12 women - but very soon Zerbanoo found that this was nowhere near enough. She thought the figures she admired would be an obvious place to start.

"I thought I would interview women who were pioneers in the world - people who had really opened up the system, who had opened up business, academia, law," she says.

"I then decided I was going to go round the world and interview people that I admired and found inspirational, which led onto other people. I didn't want to exclude young people - there were quite a few people who were very successful at quite a young age. Just as in life, I went with the flow."

The end result is a collection that is nothing if not diverse. Among the famous names included are Esther Rantzen and Claire Short, but there are also very many who are not at all well-known. What all the women have in common is that they're genuine achievers.

"I think people are tired of women changing frocks," says Zerbanoo, who lives in London. "What I'm trying to show is that people need inspiration, especially young people, and to see people who are really alive and have taken life on. I've been in journalism, I've been an editor and it's very easy to produce stuff about celebrities because it's like fast food. It's much more difficult to go and find the really great people and write about them and see what the connections between them are."

The book takes all the women's insights and divides them into themes, including families, education and how men have shaped their lives. Zerbanoo found some things surprising and a host of common factors.

"I was looking at themes and how they cross continents, and one of the things that came across to me that surprised me was how very spiritual the women were," she says.

"They all spoke about reaping what you sow and they all had this sense of community, that you have to give something back. I think they all also had this feeling that they were meant to do something important."

A major reason for the book was to promote the female sex. Zerbanoo feels its role is crucial in advancing global aims.

"I think that women are probably the last frontier as far as social work is concerned," she says. "I have found that they are still discriminated against but having said that, certainly in the last ten years there has been an extraordinary leap forwards.

"I think that what the 21st Century needs is people looking at things more creatively. I think women look at the problem all the way round. They're also not afraid of taking risks and I think that's going to be very important in the future. I think women are able to connect with others in a less confrontational way and they have a great sense of service and community. These are the things that are going to be very powerful in the future. We don't need brawn anymore, we need brains, and I think women have brains."

Zerbanoo doesn't dismiss men's role - and says her subjects didn't either. She feels the most successful women are often those with loving partners.

"The women really praised men," she says. "I found that those who had balanced relationships with men did extremely well and that the male figure was very important in the practical and moral support that they gave."

What she now hopes can be achieved is a wide-ranging world-wide network. She says she's started this already by employing ASHA's website, and there are signs that women can be brought together to do good.

"We have used the women for mentoring - for example I'm mentoring a woman who's in politics in Albania - and I hope next to enlarge the database and have a lot of women live on the website talking about their lives," says Zerbanoo.

"Also, I've started working on having the definitive site for women's organisations all over the world, so if the Women's Institute here wants to talk to a group in India looking after widows, they can.

"What's needed is the linking or connecting. We have to find new ways of solving our problems and achieving peace and I think it's to do with individuals being creative."

* Confessions to a Serial Womaniser: Secrets of the World's Inspirational Women by Zerbanoo Gifford (Phact, £12.99). All proceeds from the sale of the book will go to The ASHA Centre. For more information, visit www.ashafoundation.org/women

A set of specially commissioned portraits to tie in with the book entitled Women - A World of Inspiration - will be on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London this week. It will then move to the South Bank Centre before embarking on a national and international tour.