Newsletter - February 2000, Volume 3, Number 1

• March 8, 2000 is the kick-off date!
• Multiple launches of a global action
• A signature is also a commitment
• Act together to bring about change
• Women in Song
• Changing the World: Step by Step a mosaic of women’s struggles worldwide
• A rapidly expanding Web site

March 8, 2000 is the kick-off date!

March 8, 2000, International Women’s Day, will be a date to remember in the history of the women’s movement worldwide: the launching of a planetary solidarity movement involving marches and actions reflecting women’s determination to shake up the powers that be. On March 8, women everywhere will be launching the World March and publicizing our demands for concrete change—demands we are determined to win! This memorable day will also signal the start of the signature campaign in support of the world demands, and the beginning of activities aimed at raising awareness and mobilizing the population to combat poverty and violence against women.

Multiple launches of a global action

On March 8, 2000, the World March of Women will be launched in over 50 countries. For this occasion, Peruvian women are organizing a canto a la vida that will include workshops, debates and theatre. In Brazil, the Carnaval de Rio will be the setting of the launch of the World March. In India, women’s groups are organizing rallies, composing songs, creating street theatre and testimonies on the theme of poverty and violence against women. Moroccan women are preparing a cultural festival where many artists will participate in the start of the signature campaign. In Bolivia, the March will be launched with a "Ch’alla," a spiritual ritual of the indigenous peoples of the Andes. In Denmark, many workshops on poverty and violence against women will precede a major cultural event. Indigenous women plan to launch the World March in Panama during their third continental conference. In Romania, the March launch will take place in Iasi. French women want to hold a demonstration at the Place des Droits de l’Homme and rename it the Place des Droits de la Femme et de l’Homme (the Rights of Women and Men Square). In Haiti, the media will broadcast songs composed to Merengue rhythms during the month of February and in the streets of the capital during the three carnival days with the goal of raising the awareness of the population regarding the March demands. Nepalese women are organizing a march in Kathmandu that will include floats followed by a contingent of women marching hand in hand, dressed in rainbow colours of the silhouettes in the World March logo. Mozambican women will be marching through the streets of Maputo from the Organization of Mozambican Women’s Square to the Peace Square where they will hold a press conference. Theatre and women’s choirs will liven the launch. In the Philippines, community assemblies, multisectoral forums, an evening torchlight parade and a cultural program will surely incite women to action. From March 1-8, Pakistani women will be presenting dramas in different communities on women’s issues. In Thailand, the launch will feature a march, a seminar and an exhibit on women and social change. Women from the Fiji Islands will launch their March activities by playing drums and conch shells (huge seashells) and dancing. Zambian women are organizing marches and televised debates. Women from throughout Europe, including Eastern European countries, will march together in the streets of Geneva, bringing forward a European platform of demands. They will leave a vampire puppet in front of the World Trade Organisation. News conferences are also expected in the following cities: Amman, Beirut, Buenos Aires, Brussels, Cairo, Calcutta, Dhaka, Geneva, Kigali, Lagos, Lima, Lisbon, Managua, Maputo, Montreal, Mexico, New Delhi, New York, Ouagadougou, Ouidah, Rabat, Santiago, Seoul, Tokyo, Vancouver, Washington and many others.

And these are only some examples of the diverse activities scheduled for March 8 to launch the World March of Women!

Women from over 3500 groups in 146 countries are definitely committed to launching this great project. Already, 74 national coordinating bodies have been set up to develop and adopt women’s national demands, plan actions and facilitate coordination of the many groups who are joining forces in our common struggle. The World March of Women will resound in all regions of the world!

A signature is also a commitment

Starting on March 8, millions of women and men will sign their names in support of the demands of the World March of Women. These signatures signify individual and collective commitments to end poverty and violence against women. The signature campaign will boast a rich array of forms and colours—postcards, petitions, signature books, banners, quilts and symbolic objects—while including elements common to all.

In addition to organizing numerous popular education activities to accompany the signature campaign, women are encouraged to approach print media (newspapers and magazines) about the possibility of inserting the support card. Soon, it will be possible to support the campaign on the Internet by visiting the Web site of the March or the sites of some of the national coordinating bodies.

In October 1999, all participating groups received a sample support card (postcard and petition formats). While the format may vary, the content must remain the same. The return address on the cards should be a local address (i.e., Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, c/o National Coalition XYZ, address, country, etc.) so that cards or signatures can be collected and counted in each country before sending them all to the New York address. In countries without a national coordinating body for the March, it is still necessary to count the cards and clearly indicate the total number of cards before sending them to New York.

Do not forget that the women in New York who so generously offered to receive and organize the signatures by country will soon be inundated with millions of signatures!

Strengthened by the actions of their sisters around the globe, proud and determined women will deliver all the signatures to the UN on October 17, 2000. A minimum of 10 million signatures will represent the voices of women and men all over the world. For the member states these signatures will represent millions of reminders of the need for urgent action.

Act together to bring about change

In most countries where groups are participating in the World March, women plan to march or gather in large numbers in order to present their demands to different levels of their governments. Regional rallies are also anticipated. In Europe, women will gather in Brussels, Belgium, on October 14. Mexican women want to organize a caravan that would gather up Latin American women and women from the U.S. en route to New York for the crowning point of the World March of Women, on October 17, 2000. In addition, because all women want to participate in a collective action on October 17, groups are invited to organize a one-hour action and to encourage individual women to make a visible gesture.

Over the year, women will organize actions and popular education activities. Many groups are already preparing their events. Here are a few examples:

Australian women are creating women’s song and dance festivals. Women in Benin are preparing exhibits to sell local products and are inviting the population to plant trees. In Burkina Faso, 30 provincial teams are organizing awareness-raising tours about the March demands. In Cameroon, women are preparing rallies around the country to coincide with Pan-African Women’s Day. In Canada, woman are planning for a women’s popular tribunal on poverty. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, women will form a human chain to protest violence. Women in Mali are launching a vast information and awareness-raising campaign that will include marches, street theatre, songs and poetry. Nigerian women are producing and broadcasting promotional songs in the five national languages. In the Philippines, women will beat drums during a day against poverty. They are also organizing a national campaign to fight violence against women featuring street theatre and women’s personal stories. In El Salvador and Guinea women’s groups will broadcast radio messages about the World March. In Quebec, the population will be invited to participate in creative workshops, street theatre, art exhibits and educational games for adults and children during their rally on October 14. In Switzerland a team of skiers will participate in a high level ski competition (la Patrouille des Glaciers) wearing the colours of the March.

Please remember to tell us about your actions so that we can share information about your struggles and victories with all participating groups. We will collectively pay tribute to our struggles and gains and demonstrate our pride during the rally on October 17, 2000.

We hope to meet with the presidents of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank during our stopover in Washington on October 15. We are counting on their presence to hear the demands of women from around the globe. We also hope to speak with Mr. Kofi Annan and address the General Assembly of the United Nations on October 17. In December 1999, at the World Civil Society Conference, the president of the Fédération des femmes du Québec, Françoise David, had the chance to address the Secretary-General of the UN, Kofi Annan, who assured her in front of 300 people that he is awaiting the delegation of the World March of Women on October 17, 2000.

Women in Song

Across the planet, the musical theme and chorus of the World March will be appropriated by women who will write their own verses and then sing far and wide their concerns and good reasons to march. Some national coordinating bodies and participating groups plan to use it for the launch of the March in their country. Other women plan to organize national contests to come up with the words to their song. We invite women around the planet to share their song with their communities and to send us their lyrics by May 3, 2000. This way, we will be able to make women’s songs based on the same musical theme and chorus a feature of the New York rally on October 17, 2000.

Changing the World: Step by Step a mosaic of women’s struggles worldwide

The mosaic, a collection in tribute to women’s struggles worldwide, is finally available! Distributed to all participating groups, it is a tool for awareness-raising, inspiration, mobilization and encouragement to action. Fifty actions are gathered under 12 headings. In the South as in the North, women are struggling for better working conditions, for access to resources, education and health, and for an end to sexual violence in war and in peace, sex trafficking, wife assault and custom- or tradition-based violence.

The second section of the mosaic gives us a glimpse of actions that have already taken place or are being planned by participating groups of the World March of Women. They are numerous and varied and all of them are designed to generate substantial changes in the current world order (or should we say disorder?).

The mosaic does not pretend to offer an exhaustive list of women’s struggles and actions. It is rather meant as a tribute to the richness and diversity of women’s movements around the planet, leaving room for imagination and creativity.

You can obtain additional copies of the mosaic by filling out the order form and returning it to the Montreal office of the World March of Women.

A rapidly expanding Web site

The Web site of the World March of Women is fully up-to-date and brimming with information. All the publications of the World March can be found there and soon there will be links to other Web sites. If your country has a March Web site, please send us the address. You are also welcome to set up a link on your Web site to the World March site: www.ffq.qc.ca/marche2000

Texts available on the Web site

Remember, you can obtain documents published by the World March of Women on our Web site:

• newsletters
• advocacy guide to women’s world demands
• information document on the rights of lesbians
• press releases
• complete list of groups participating in the March

Between March and October 2000, we will send information to participating groups of the March by E-mail (approximately every six weeks). The information will also be available on our Web site. Unfortunately, our financial situation prevents us from sending these memos by regular mail. If you do not have E-mail, please get in touch with your national coordinating body or other local groups who have access in order to get the information. We invite you to consult the Web site of the World March of Women, and if necessary, make any needed address changes for your group. This will help us keep you more regularly informed on the progress of the March.