Arizona branch connects with youth

By Barbara Taft, Greater Phoenix Branch treasurer

Greater Phoenix Branch has just put out its first newsletter, in which we told about our production of Most Dangerous Women, as well as our recent tabling at the Mesa Martin Luther King Day event.

Since then, we tabled at Arizona State University during the Forum and Festival (previously known as the teach-in) sponsored by the campus Local to Global Justice. This year's theme was racial justice. We passed out literature, sold buttons and peace beads, and chatted with the people in attendance. We also got sign-ups for our mailing list and volunteers for our next event.

That event is something that we will be doing jointly with our local peace group, Arizona Alliance for Peace and Justice (AAPJ) on the weekend of March 11, 12, and 13. AAPJ's Peace Kids subgroup has been staffing a booth at the Scottsdale Arts Festival for several years.

We will be becoming the lead group in this ongoing project, which is held in the kids' area of the festival, known as Imagine Nation.  We will be working with the children there to help them fold peace cranes, while telling them about Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. This year's theme for the kids' area is "Art is Everywhere," and since folding papers cranes is like an engineering task, we will represent "engineering for peace."

We're also still thinking about how and where to present some excerpts from the play. One of the professors we know at ASU thinks she may be able to get us into some classrooms in a variety of departments to do this. We could do some of the shorter dialogues along with a couple of songs, thus enabling people to learn about some of the great women represented in the play and about WILPF's ongoing work. And we’re thinking of starting a Raging Grannies group to bring in more members.

We recently showed Pray the Devil Back to Hell, the Abigail Disney production about Liberia that is part of the Women, War and Peace series.  We hope to show some of the other films from the series in the future. We're looking forward to growing our branch and we're trying to explore ways to get more young people and women of color to join, as we think one of the greatest assets we have is the diversity of this community.

For info on the branch, contact Barbara Taft at 480-380-6325.
 

PHOTO: Member Josephine Sbrocca (standing) and branch chair Floris Freshman chat with a visitor to the WILPF table at the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Festival in Mesa.  Credit: Mike Taft