Women's Organization of Iran (WOI), 1971-1979
In 1969, during her time at the National University of Iran in Tehran, Mahnaz Afkhami was asked to be an Iranian Delegate for the United Nations. She spent six week at the General Assembly in New York City, New York, where she fulfilled her role as an Iranian Delegate. In 1970, Mahnaz was asked, and accepted, to again fill the role as Iranian Delegate. That year, before leaving Tehran for New York, Abdolreza Ansari, deputy to Princess Ashraf, asked Mahnaz to serve as the secretary general of the Women's Organization of Iran (WOI). After prompting from Princess Ashraf, Mahnaz accepted the position.
Throughout her time as secretary general of the WOI, Mahnaz traveled across Iran to meet the nation's women, listening to their stories, their aspirations, and their challenges. During the first six months that she served the WOI, she visited approximately 40 villages and towns across Iran, including Bandar Abbas, Abadan, Yazd, Isfahan, and Kashan.
During Mahnaz's tenure, the WOI began offering childcare facilities alongside their workshops, a family planning unit, counseling and legal advice for newly emancipated women. WOI centers began to multiply and were programmed by the women of the community to which they belonged. By the end of 1975, the WOI had 349 branches and 120 centers established throughout Iran. By the end of 1977, over one million women were participating to some degree with the programs created by the WOI branches and centers.
Mahnaz also traveled outside of the country during her time with the WOI, including a trip to the Soviet Union, where she and her fellow WOI members met Valentina Tereshkova, the first ever female astronaut, and toured throughout the union including Alma Ata and Leningrad. WOI, with Mahnaz, were also afforded the opportunity to travel to China where they traveled to Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou and visited a textile factory, schools, youth centers, a neighborhood committee, a tea plantation and a commune and were able to speak with many women and children.
Mahnaz used her time, travels, and the conversations she had with women across the globe to tailer her ideas of feminism and grow the WOI to support millions of women.
