WILPF- Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

The women in Geneva are bundling up during Geneva’s first week of real winter temperatures. It’s the holiday season and everyone seems to be shutting down for the year, but despite the holiday lull, WILPFers have had a fully energized month of human rights and environment related activities.

A wrap of the last month begins at the end of November. Shortly after the posting of the last International Monthly Update, Geneva exploded with both peaceful and violent protest against the Seventh Session of the WTO Ministerial Conference from 30 November to 2 December 2009. Discussions on “The WTO, the Multilateral Trading System and the Current Global Economic Environment” took place in the convention center just a few hundred meters from the WILPF office, which means that we had a birds-eye view of demonstrations and were required to show identification upon entering the building.

Meanwhile Co-Presidents, Annelise Ebbe and Kerstin Grebäck led the WILPF delegation of 16 members to attend all 14 days of the Copenhagen Climate Summit from December 7-18th. WILPFers were busy attending and holding meetings and side events, lobbying their governments, consulting on the draft of A Peoples Declaration from Klimaforum09 and participating in the large demonstration on the 12th under the banner of the Danish section. Full details on the summit are included in this update.

December 10th also marked International Human Rights Day, which hosted a series of meetings and speeches on the current status of human rights. Deputy High Commissioner of the OHCHR, Kyung-wha Kang addressed “The Courage to Lead” global summit for women leaders taking place in Geneva from 8 to 10 December stating that “Women produce half of the world’s food, and their work accounts for two-thirds of the world’s working hours. And yet, women earn only 10 per cent of the world’s income and own less than one per cent of the world’s property.” She pointed out that with only six years remaining until the 2015 deadline set to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, at the current rate of progress, the target of eliminating gender disparity between girls and boys in primary education would be very unlikely to be achieved.

The summit brought women from over 30 countries to Geneva on the occasion of Human Rights Day to explore ways that women’s human rights can be best protected and how women leaders can best contribute to this struggle in their countries.

In other news, we enjoyed a lovely presentation this month from interns Leila Chaker and Hadil Zainal, who have been working together (via Skype) with Anje Rosga from the UNO office in New York on an educational project devoted to changing perspectives on security involving member driven activism, the UN system and treaty bodies. We have applied for a grant through UNIFEM to fund the project and will find out the status of our proposal hopefully next month. More information on this project, as well as its official name, should be available on the WILPF UNO site in the coming weeks

We are also in the process of creating a series of short videos to be broadcasted via Youtube, which will promote the work of WILPF and hopefully generate donations. While still in the brainstorming phase, we have made some solid contact with professionals willing to partner with us on this and hope to produce some results in the near future! We have also been trying to finalize the migration of our old website to a new one, which will be much easier to manage and have a sleeker, modern look. We hope to have the new site up by the beginning of next year. These moves, along with our social networking sites, represent our attempts of taking advantage of modern media for promotion of our organization. In this day and age, we know that we need to start utilizing the media that people use the most frequently in order to keep WILPF and our missions in the public consciousness. If you are not already doing so, please become a fan of us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter in order to receive regular updates on international WILPF happenings!

From all of us at the WILPF Geneva office, we wish you happy holidays and optimistic outlook for the New Year! Shortly after the IB ends in January 2010, Susi will be leaving her post as Secretary General and there will likely be a lot of charges for us during the next few months of transition, so we appreciate all your patience and support.

As always, we welcome feedback and input to these mailings. If you have something to contribute to the next mailing, please send it to secretariat@wilpf.ch with “For International Update” clearly marked in the subject line.
For the complete mailing as a web document, click here.
For the complete mailing as a printer friendly PDF, click here.
Past updates are archived on the website at: http://www.wilpf.int.ch/updates/,

Message from the SG

Dear Friends,

In 1989 I saw a boy at school wearing a shirt that read “It will be a great day when schools have all the money they need for books and the Navy has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber”. It is hard to believe that more than twenty years later I would be ending seven years employment with the organization that produced this timeless classic, with an organization still dedicated to ending military spending and funding real human security instead.

WILPF is going through some serious transitions right now- and this is the right thing to do as the organization approaches 100 years. This change affords an opportunity to examine who and where WILPF fits in the broad spectrum of organizations working on peace and justice issues. The work of the PeaceWomen and Reaching Critical Will projects continue to bring the world’s attention back to WILPF- but what of our own programme? Our own priorities? This and much more will be discussed at the upcoming International Board Meeting.

It has been a great pleasure working with our Indian Section to prepare for this coming meeting, and I am eager to meet with so many wonderful people during this early January event. It will be a fitting closure to my time with WILPF.

Friends, I’ve been in touch with many of you since the announcement of my departure was first circulated. Rest assured, I may be leaving my post as WILPF’s Secretary General, but I will keep WILPF close to my heart and my activism, for, at least, the next twenty years.

With gracious thanks to everyone who has made this journey so fascinating, we’ll keep in touch.

In peace,
Susi Snyder
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Update from the Executive Committee

Annelise Ebbe and Kerstin Grebäck led the WILPF delegation at the Copenhagen Climate Summit December 7-18th, 2009. Read their report in the section on the summit.

In October Amparo Guerrero went to Colombia and worked with the Limipal Colombia Section in Bogota. One of her activities involved participating in a national conference about making Resolution 1324 in Colombia. She is currently coordinating the Mexico core group process and remains in constant contact with the women Puebla, who hope to become a WILPF Section at the next conference. She preparing for the IB meeting in India and working with the Ex Com on other important issues affecting WILPF international.

Executive Committee members can be reached at their WILPF email addresses, which are firstname.lastname@wilpf.ch.

Copenhagen Climate Summit

Annelise Ebbe was designated to lead the WILPF delegation at the COP 15. WILPF organized a meeting on Women’s Perspective on Nuclear Energy. Edel Havin Beukes from the Norwegian Section and convenor of the Working Group on Environment made an introduction to the theme and Helen Caldicott delivered an excellent and frightening keynote speech entitled “Nuclear Power is not the Answer to Global Warning.” Eva Fidjestøl, also from the Norwegian Section, added information and experience about “The Truth about Chernobyl” and “Radiological Weapons.” Kerstin gave the WILPF perspective and presented on how nuclear energy, uranium mining and uranium weapons are focused on at this conference. For a personal report from Annelise and Kerstin on the events of the summit, please read click .here

b. A Peoples Declaration from Klimaforum09

WILPF participated in discussing, adding to and deleting from the draft of A Peoples Declaration from Klimaforum09, which had been worked on for three months by a preparatory committee. WILPF’s Working Group on Environment has not taken part in these preparations but Edel Havin Beukes, Convenor of the Working Group, wanted us to make a try to get some WILPF perspectives on the outcome of the document. We agreed to make an effort because we thought that the main body of the Declaration was good. You can read the declaration here in English or Spanish.

POSITION PAPER ON CLIMATE CHANGE—April 2008
Wilpf (Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom) works with many organisations, is a part of numerous international networks and coalitions and participates in all the international forums related to sustainable development, climate change, and bioenergy, analysing them in a gender perspective. More…

WILPF Statement issued by the International Board—24 November 2008
WILPF recognizes climate change as one of the most urgent security challenges of our time. Predictions of future climate impacts vary from disruptive to catastrophic natural disasters, hunger, drought, widespread displacement, conflict, and suffering. More…

Our annual human rights intern, Ilse Wermink, has compiled a document on our HR activities from September to December. The Geneva Human Rights Team wishes you all an amazing festive season. Remember Article 24 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Everyone has the right to rest and leisure!!, but first read the last HR Update of the year which summarizes WILPF’s work over the last months.
Please click on the following links :

WILPF is a co-founder and constant contributor to the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security. We remain consistently engaged through our PeaceWomen project and are one of the drivers of the Security Council MAP.

December’s Security Council Presidency for December is Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso’s 2008-2009 Security Council membership has included a particular focus on mediation and negotiation processes. During Burkina Faso’s Security Council Presidency in September, 2008, a Presidential Statement was issued that included an emphasis on the importance of including women in mediation and negotiation efforts.
Burkina Faso’s relevant international commitments include: Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Ratified 16 April 2004); Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW): (Acceded 14 October 1987; ratified the Optional Protocol 10 Oct 2005)

Marie-Claire Faray, Executive member-UK WILPF, recently attended WILPF Connection Sessions in the DRC. Over 65 women were connected to WILPF over the course of five WILPF Connection sessions that took place in the capital Kinshasa (the West of the DRC), Goma/Rutshuru/kiwanja /Bukavu (war affected cities in the East of the DRC) and Gisenyi (Rwanda) from 23 November to 10 December. The Connection Sessions focused on evaluating the DRC group and restructuring the roles currently existing within the group.

Read her letter describing the experience here. A detailed report with photos documenting the experience will be available soon.
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