Ms. Ritvia Koukku-Ronde – Ambassador of Finland to the United States
Last week’s breakfast speaker was Mrs. Ritva Koukku-Ronde who reiterated her pleasure at being Finland’s first female ambassador to the U.S. She added that in her country of five million people, promoting women’s participation has been strong since the early 20th Century. In Parliament today, 9 of the 19 members are women. About 175 years ago, Finns and Swedes first came to Delaware. With humor, Ritva told us the Finns showed us how to build “block houses”. More seriously, one Finn signed our Declaration of Independence. Today, the Finns are busy building and maintaining their good relationships in Europe and abroad. They belong to the Eurozone but not to NATO. Their biggest “Together Fields” with other nations are security, water, health and life. They hope to expand their population a bit with higher echelon people such as doctors and scientists.
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