Inspiring Women Magazine May 2023

Hiking in Austria (top left)
Favorite SDG (middle left)
In Verona (bottom left)
Connie's grandparents (top right)
Hiking with her husband (middle right)
Connie Phlipot Features Coordinator
AWA Vienna
In Paris (bottom right)
A summer studying Russian in the Soviet
Union 47 years ago ignited my passion for living
abroad. I grew up in a rural area near Cleveland,
Ohio, home to one of the largest settlements of
Eastern European immigrants in the US. My own
maternal grandparents – whom I admired and
adored – emigrated in the early part of the
20th century from the Russian Empire, in what
is now Belarus. My Soviet studies experience
navigating culturally and logistically in unknown
lands inspired and empowered me to pursue a
career as a US diplomat. Early on in my career, I
met and subsequently married a wonderful
fellow US diplomat. This June we will celebrate
our 35th wedding anniversary. Many countries later – sometimes in the same place,
sometimes not – we ended up retiring in Vienna. The Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) played – and continues to play – a big role in our life
in Vienna.
My second passion is writing and reading. Soon after I moved to Vienna, I joined the
Sunday Writers Club, a fabulous group of English-speaking writers from a multitude
of countries who come together on Sundays to write and share their works in a café
or online. On my own, I’ve been working (slowly) on a novel loosely based on my
experiences in Eastern Europe. At least once a year, I join an election observation
mission under OSCE auspices as either a short-term or long-term observer. I’ve recently
joined the local Vienna organization of Women in International Security and eagerly
participate in forums on international relations in Vienna. I am also an obsessive
runner, hiker, biker, word puzzler and – if there is ever enough snow – cross-country
skier. I began running in college to accompany a friend who was taking jogging to
meet her phys. ed. requirement. After twenty years of making fun of my running habit,
my husband joined me and together we began to participate in races, including
half-marathons.
I discovered FAWCO during a discussion on the Target Project soon after I became an
AWA member in 2019. Excited to find a group of women interested in the global issues
that I care about, I joined AWA’s small FAWCO liaison team. During the COVID-19 years,
we took advantage of social media to raise our club’s awareness of SDGs and the UN
campaign against violence against women. My first major FAWCO event was helping
organize the 2022 Region 5 FAWCO meeting in Vienna. Currently, I am co-chair of the
local organizing committee for the 2023 Bratislava Conference. I have also contributed
to the AWA magazine, Highlights, as writer and editor.
Two of the writers I most admire are the Russian and Belarusan women Svetlana
Alexievich and Lyudmila Ulitskaya, whose works focus on the lives of so-called “ordinary”
women doing extraordinary things – like the inspiring women of FAWCO. I hope that my
contribution to the Inspiring Women team will be to help promote their fabulous stories.
112 INSPIRING WOMEN INSPIRING WOMEN 113