BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Jehan Sadat, widow of slain Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, believes in women and the power women have to effect change in the world.

“I believe women will have their day in the sun,” she said Thursday during Network 2000 Inc.’s 13th annual Women of Excellence luncheon in Baltimore.

Peppering her remarks with comments about her slain husband and her family, Sadat kept returning to the theme that empowering women in Arab nations and throughout the world can lead to conflict resolution around the globe.

“I believe in peace in the Middle East,” she said.

Sadat, who divides her time between the United States and Egypt, is a senior fellow at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she holds the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development. She’s also the founder of Wafa ‘Wal Amal in Egypt, the largest rehabilitation center in the Middle East; an organizer of the Talla Society to help illiterate and impoverished Egyptian village women find personal, social and economic power; the founder of the Arab-African Women’s League; and a reformer of Egypt’s civil rights law, giving women the right to divorce, child custody and alimony.

“Neither competence nor accomplishment” have brought about equal rights for women, she said. “Arab women cannot continue to be treated as unintended contributors” to the progress made thus far in countries such as Egypt.

“We must learn to accept that what happens to women in one part of the world affects us all,” she said. “Women can be free if we train women to help themselves.”

Network 2000, a nonprofit organization founded in 1993 to promote the advancement of women in professional and executive positions, also presented its annual Business 2000 award in conjunction with the Daily Record to Keswick Multi-Care Center, a group created 123 years ago by 12 women as the Home for Incurables of Baltimore City.

Keswick president Elizabeth Bowerman said the nonprofit health group offers help to 800 people each year through its myriad programs.

“If every you had a doubt about the power of having a vision and seeing it through, look at Keswick,” she said.

Network 2000 also presented $25,000 to the American Military Spouses Education Foundation, which offers college scholarships to spouses of military personnel.

kcarson@baltimoreexaminer.com