Newsletter - August 2002

To the participating groups in the World March of Women

We are delighted to be in touch with you and to send you a copy of the report on the World March of Women. Women on the March gives us a look at the demands and actions staged by the groups participating in the World March of Women in the year 2000 and subsequently. We invite you to read it carefully and also to visit our Web site www.marchemondiale.org/bilan, where we have posted a multimedia version. This version includes many photos and video clips as well as a multitude of hyperlinks that will lead you to a wealth of additional information.

The World March of Women caused a feminist movement of extraordinary vitality and creativity to emerge in the international arena. This is a movement with a huge ability to mobilize and act; it has paid much attention to popular education on issues until then confined to the “experts” in economic and political matters. By pooling our efforts, over and above borders, over and above cultures, we gave ourselves new impetus and new determination.

The World March of Women’s originality lay in engaging the fight against poverty and violence against women on our own terms and through actions that we ourselves defined. It was these concepts of collective action and popular education, allowing grass-roots women to raise problems and identify solutions, that impelled the women present in New York in October 2000 to say we should maintain this network of feminist solidarity in action. In October 2001, at the third international meeting of the World March of Women, the network was consolidated as a permanent reality.

The two main themes of the World March of Women continue to be the fight against poverty and violence against women. Our domestic and world actions will continue to revolve around these two problems. We are seeing to planning another world action for 2005.

The World March of Women Follow-up Committee, who met recently in Rome, Italy, realized how important it is to work towards adopting a strategic action plan in order to bring about again the mobilizing conditions that led us to the year 2000. We firmly believe in the importance of having a common rendezvous in 2005. We also think we must be able to identify what steps will lead us to scoring successes. The deteriorating conditions of women’s lives, the fragility of our gains, and the insecurity and fear generated by an anti-terrorist campaign waged by right-wing forces newly reinforced since September 11—all of this demands our collective action.

This must be the focus of the next meeting of national coordinating bodies of the World March of Women being held December 3-7, 2002, in India: it is our next rendezvous. At this meeting we will adopt a strategic action plan leading towards the 2005 world feminist rendezvous. Your national coordinating body has received the working paper for the event. Three delegates will be chosen from each coordinating body. If you do not have a coordinating body, we urge you to organize a national meeting. Please send us the names of your delegates.

We will be in touch regularly via electronic mail with participating groups. If you do not receive our messages, please be sure to send your e-mail address to: marche2000@ffq.qc.ca. In the meantime you can enjoy reading our latest production called Women on the March. It reflects our collective efforts, and we can be proud of having brought about our utopian wish to see the women’s movement assembled in a common action to counter poverty and violence against women.

Yours in solidarity and action,

Diane Matte

Coordinator, World March of Women

A joint publication by the World March of Women
and Les Éditions du remue-ménage
Available in French, English and Spanish
Multimedia version: www.marchemondiale.org/bilan

For reasons of expediency, we encourage you to use the distribution network if you wish to obtain extra copies of Women on the March. If you do not have access of one of these services, please send your order form with your payment to the attention of Les Éditions du remue-ménage (see the order form online).