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Newsletter - July 1999, Volume 2, Number 1
Volume 2, Number 1
Newsletter, July 1999, Volume 2, Number 1
Marching for hope, equality, peace and democracy
In little more than a year, women will begin marching. The five continents will echo with their words, songs, shouts and steps.
Since the time when Quebec feminists launched the appeal for women's solidarity worldwide, the project has progressed by leaps and bounds. Today more than 130 countries are represented and over 2000 groups have signed up. Close to forty national coordinating bodies have been established. In other words, right this minute, thousands of women are in the process of building a magnificent collective event.
Why so much enthusiasm? Why is the World March of Women in the Year 2000 sparking so much interest; why is it leading women to waive their differences and build a consensus, why is it "luring" them into action?
The answer lies in how women live today and the new world they would like to live in. Women everywhere are the main victims of neoliberal policy. They are poor yet live on a rich planet. They are oppressed by patriarchal regimes. In many countries they must fight for their most elementary rights: water, food, shelter, paid work, access to school and citizenship, freedom to choose to bear children or not, and so on.
Some women are particularly discriminated against, for example, immigrants and lesbians. All of them wish to see their rights recognized, both in their countries and internationally.
Women also initiate, direct and participate in alternatives to poverty and violence. They have set up cooperatives, human rights groups, community kitchens, unions and women's centres. Now they want to go further, and this is what the March represents for them.
The World March resolutely takes issue with poverty and all forms of violence against women. It is proposing concrete solutions to both of these scourges. Its demands make up a program that is basic and no doubt necessary for many years to come. In this sense, the world rally at the UN on October 17, 2000 will be both a crowning point and a beginning, for other stages are sure to follow.
The objectives we might bear in mind while we organize this planet-wide march are:
The World March of Women in the Year 2000 sees itself as inclusive and respectful of women's diversity, and it gives rise to the development of alliances. Its program of demands is resolutely feminist and its action, militant. It wants to make a modest but convincing contribution to shaking up the established order. It is not a end but a beginning.
Are you marching too?
Mosaic of women's struggles worldwide
Last October, at the International Preparatory Meeting for the March, a number of delegates said they would like to share different popular education experiences tried in relation to poverty and violence against women throughout the world. What could be more inspiring to spur us into action than a mosaic of women's struggles worldwide! To this end, we will be sending a collection in tribute to women's struggles to all participating groups starting in January 2000.
The collection will highlight different forms of struggle, popular education experiences and alternative projects championed by the world's women. It may also help us devise strategies and popular education tools within the framework of the March. Finally, it will be useful in the campaign to sign cards in support of the world demands, which will be launched on March 8, 2000.
To enhance the collection, we encourage you to send us thoughts or poems written by women, popular sayings in your country or any other kind of short text that inspires women in your region.
Sing out!
Music is a wonderful traveller. It crosses time and space to move hearts and reach into our souls. It accompanies women in their day-to-day lives, shares their joys and sorrows, their struggles and triumphs. Above all, music unites and mobilizes people. It is a source of hope.
For all these reasons, a musical theme will be composed for the World March. The theme will be distributed (on audio cassettes) between now and January 2000 so that women can hear it, adopt it as their own and write their own lyrics. In fact, writing the lyrics might be an activity to mobilize women on March 8, 2000!
International Liaison Committee
Did you know there is now an International Liaison Committee for the World March? Made up of 40 representatives of participating groups from all over the world, the Committee assists the Coordinating Committee of the March in making decisions related to the world demands. Its members also promote the March among new groups and serve as links between their respective region's participating groups and the Coordinating Committee.
The Liaison Committee mostly works through documents being sent back and forth through electronic mail and fax machines to inform or consult members. Committee members then send on the information for discussion and/or suggestions (if applicable) to the groups and national coalitions in the regions they represent. That is how the decision was made on where to hold the world rally on October 17, 2000.
At the present time, we are looking for funds so that the International Liaison Committee can meet in November 1999. The purpose of the meeting would be to outline the national and regional actions planned thus far, to plan the world actions and finalize how the latter will unfold.
Distance, financial constraints and our diversity represent major challenges to organizing an event of the scope of our March. Against this backdrop, the International Liaison Committee is an essential means to secure the success of the actions we undertake. The input of women from all corners of the earth is the guarantee that ours will truly be a world march.
The power of joint action
The World March is the occasion to unite in planet-wide action, while at the same time taking part in national and local actions reflecting our particular characteristics and our diversity.
As agreed at the International Preparatory Meeting (October 1998, in Montreal), the International Liaison Committee studied the action scenarios for the worldwide scale. They are now taking shape. Thanks to exchanges with International Liaison Committee members and with a number of national coordinating bodies, we have now defined the targets of the world actions, the venue for the world rally, the form the support card will have and the world slogan.
World rally in New York on October 17, 2000
During the International Meeting there was a lot of discussion on which institutions to target and where to hold the world rally. Three main international bodies emerged from the exchange: the United Nations in New York, and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, both in Washington. It was decided that an international delegation will be present in Washington on Sunday, October 15, 2000, for the U.S. women's national rally. Part of this march will parade outside the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Then the international delegation will travel to New York for the world rally outside the UN building on October 17. This way, the March will challenge important strategic bodies representing both economic and political power on the international scene.
Millions of signatures expected
As you know, a signature campaign to support the world demands will begin on March 8, 2000 and end when the cards are delivered at the UN on October 17, 2000.
You will appreciate that it is impossible for us to print and send the support cards to all the participating groups. The task of printing and distributing the cards will have to fall to the national coordinating bodies and participating groups themselves. Thus you will be able to print the cards in the language and format of your choice. Part of the card content will be common to all, however.
Two card formats are proposed: the postcard and the group/petition card. Some groups suggested printing a detachable card, with one part being used for national actions and the other to send to New York. We recommend that you use recycled paper as often as possible, but your card does not have to be made out of paper. Be creative-without forgetting that the cards must be sent to New York and so, small, lightweight cards are to be preferred! Before January 2000 we will send you a sample support card indicating the common content (logo and short text) that should appear.
We urge you to contact your national coordinating body to see about organizing the support card campaign in your country. If there is no such body where you live, you can join other participating groups from your country or region to design and print or photocopy your card. Participating groups and national coordinating bodies will take charge of distributing, collecting and compiling the cards in their region. At the present time, we are looking at different options to facilitate sending the cards to New York.
To make sure we collect as many signatures as possible to support the demands, two complementary distribution strategies will be used: inserting the card in the print media (magazines, etc.) and creating a page on the World March Web site so that women with access to Internet can include their names. We encourage you to explore the feasibility of inserting support cards, together with articles about the March, in the print media of your country and region.
You could begin discussing approaches or strategies to ensure widespread distribution and to maximize the number of signatures. Once again, creativity will take centre stage!
2000 good reasons to march: ....
We tried to find a world slogan with which women could identify. It soon became apparent that finding a symbol common to the living conditions of the women of the world was impossible. We did however come up with a compromise! The slogan "2000 good reasons to march" was chosen with a colon (:) at the end so that each country can add on its national slogan reflecting its own circumstances and the living conditions women hope for. For example, Burkina Faso's slogan could be tacked on to the world slogan, as follows: "2000 good reasons to march: Djii, suuma, neema" (Water, food, plenitude).
We encourage all participating groups to use this presentation of "2000 good reasons to march" on their materials in order to standardize the message and to feel that we are all part of the same fine, large movement.
Important dates for all
Just imagine the richness of our diversity
Let's take five minutes to imagine what the World March of Women in the Year 2000 could look like.…
On the world scale
When you dream of the worldwide actions, what do you see? Millions of support card signatures? A sea of women from everywhere at the world rally in New York? Impressive media coverage? A heightened awareness of poverty and violence against women? A strengthening of the international feminist solidarity movement?
In your country
There will be as many ways of mobilizing on the national scale as there are countries participating in the March. Each will bear the stamp of its traditions and day-to-day reality, the richness of its history and culture, and the array of its concerns. Women's imagination and creativity know no bounds.
In some countries, women will choose to have a big national rally. Others will organize a relay march from one end of the country to the other, or simultaneous one-day marches in many cities and towns. Together with marches and rallies, others will hold awareness-raising workshops, popular theatre, training sessions, school contests, photo or art exhibitions, or activities in streets and markets. Still others will plan popular shows, doing something particular at the same time (making noise or wearing a common symbol), one-hour strikes, special programs on community radio stations, making quilts or song compositions.
National coalitions made up of different groups in the women's movement in each country will coordinate the local and national activities having to do with their demands. Some coalitions may decide to take up as national demands some of the world demands that are most important in their context. Other coalitions will concentrate on existing demands of the women's movement in their country in relation to poverty and violence against women.
In your part of the world
Some regions will plan regional actions in which women from several countries will get together to act and exchange news. For example, a European rally will be held in Brussels on October 14, 2000.
Upon imagining the outcome of the World March, maybe we will be saying that it was rooted in concrete reality; that it was instrumental in strengthening women's actions and struggles; that it found inspiration in the long years of women's groups' commitments the world over; and that it reinforced gains already achieved!
Wanted: information!
To provide other groups and countries all over the world with information about what is happening in your country, we need your help.
Please let us know, as soon as possible, about your:
Coming to a cinema near you
"Women's voices heard: separate at first and strikingly diverse in tonality and language. The daily rhythms of women at work in all corners of the globe: repetitive songs marking time in the fields and providing counterpoint to the cadence of the electronic parts assembly line; the rhythm of grain threshing and meal preparation; songs to instill courage during the long trek to draw water at the well or sell goods at the market; lullabies to lull children to sleep or comfort the sick; cries of sorrow on the death of a loved one in an armed conflict; devastating silence following a child's death from hunger; screams of outrage at the rape of a sister, mother, daughter or friend; clarion calls for change rising from noisy street demonstrations….
"From every region of the world, these voices of women swell into a planetary chorus proclaiming a new millennium free of violence and poverty."
Filmmaker Sophie Bissonnette is the originator, producer and coordinator of a documentary feature and series centred around the historic rendezvous of the World March of Women. She has invited seasoned documentary filmmakers from various continents to work on the film, which will be released in March 2001. The film will mainly focus on projects led by women's groups in different corners of the globe to combat violence and poverty and promote an alternative vision of society.
Serving simultaneously as an overview, historical context and glimpse ahead to the third millennium, the project aims to gather together different perspectives developed by women, in a creation that is international in scope, humanist in approach, embraces diversity and celebrates the all too often undervalued contribution of half of humanity. The film may turn out to be an invaluable tool to continue on with the March of Women....
A continuum…
Many of our demands are on a continuum with those of other groups and coalitions. The March is also an extension of what has been accomplished by women working with the UN for the past twenty-five years.
To maximize its impact, we must seek alliances in support of our demands. Many social movements are certainly ready to back some or all of them, for example, the trade union and popular movements. Moreover, international coalitions exist and organize parallel forums to official meetings held by UN agencies. These are places where we can take our platform and participate in the activities. We invite you to consult the Advocacy Guide to Women's World Demands that we wrote; it musters arguments to garner support or to approach social actors likely to support us.
We want to mesh the March demands with the Platform for Action adopted in Beijing in 1995. This is important given the process already begun by States and the UN in preparation for the special session of the UN General Assembly in June 2000 in New York. At this session, member States will report on their achievements in relation to the commitments they undertook five years earlier in Beijing. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) will also give their viewpoints. We are sure to witness many differences of opinion! The session will also be the occasion to establish the prospects for continuing the Platform for Action. This is where groups participating in the March can intervene. The regional and subregional meetings to be held in preparation for the June 2000 meeting (Beijing + 5) will also be excellent venues to press ahead with our demands. Whenever possible, we hope to send March representatives to those meetings. We urge you to make sure the World March of Women in the Year 2000 is on the agenda at all these events.
Please note that a document comparing our demands and the Beijing Platform for Action will soon be available on our Web site.
Please note
Ce bulletin est disponible en français. Este boletin está disponible en español.
If your group wishes to participate in the March, please send us a sign-up coupon.
Newsletter, July 1999, Volume 2, Number 1
Newsletter, July 1999, Volume 2, Number 1
Newsletter, July 1999, Volume 2, Number 1
Newsletter, July 1999, Volume 2, Number 1
Newsletter, July 1999, Volume 2, Number 1
Newsletter, July 1999, Volume 2, Number 1
Newsletter, July 1999, Volume 2, Number 1
Newsletter, July 1999, Volume 2, Number 1
Newsletter, July 1999, Volume 2, Number 1
To obtain one, or for any other information please contact us.
Telephone (1) 514-395-1196 Fax (1) 514-395-1224
E-mail address: marche2000@ffq.qc.ca.
Web site: www.ffq.qc.ca
Last modified 2006-03-23 03:08 PM
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