NEWS

by Nancy Price, Earth Democracy Issue Committee

From Nov. 29 to Dec. 12, all eyes will be on Paris. International WILPF will be there with a display at the main exhibition space and with panels at the People’s Climate Summit. Every UN climate negotiation has fallen far short of what needs to be done to avoid climate disaster.

Big energy has lobbied hard for minimal action, and leaders from the industrialized nations have not had the courage to take bold steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adequately fund the UN Green Climate Fund to help countries with adaptation and mitigation. This year COP 21 (Conference of the Parties) must have a different outcome.

Marching for Climate Justice: To make our voices heard, the global climate movement will have the first and last word in Paris. There will be a massive march on November 29, just before negotiations begin on November 30, and December 12, the day after negotiations end, a second massive march to set the agenda for actions in 2016.

Here’s important information

First: Meeting up in Paris

If you are going to Paris, we’ve created a listserv for you to share contact information and keep up-to-date about WILPF activities there. If you’d like to be on the listserv, please email me at nancytprice39@gmail.com. We hope to have a place where WILPFers can meet in Paris on Dec. 4.   

Second: WILPF Plans for COP 21

Nancy Price and Odile Hugonot Haber have been working with Sophie Morel (France) and Heidi Meinzolt (Germany), along with Lorraine Mirham and Edel Havin Beukes of WILPF International’s Environmental Working Group, on plans for Paris. Two panels were submitted for approval for the People’s Climate Summit, Dec. 5-6,  one titled “Nuclear Energy Will Not Save the Planet,” linking civilian and military uses of nuclear energy and pollution, and the other is “Facing Climate Change: Growing Militarism vs. International Solidarity.”   Be sure to consult the People’s Climate Summit for information about all activities during those two days. The International office in Geneva has designed posters for the display in the exhibition hall in space that will bring together a large number of women’s groups working for climate justice.  

Third: Calls to Action

1. Here’s the Climate Change, Environmental Justice and Peace Resolution passed at the Centennial Congress in The Hague to print out for tabling.
2. Read The Women’s Global Call for Climate Justice set forth by a number of women’s organizations who state: “Women of the world have had enough. The time for Urgent Action is now. We are speaking Truth to Power. We are Demanding Change.”  You can sign on to join the call here.
3. From November 20 onward, climate marches are being organized across the world.
4. Join a Global Climate March action near you – or start one in your community. Here is more information. 
5. Be sure to add your name here to the petition to world leaders calling for keeping 80% of fossil fuels in the ground and building a just transition to 100% renewable and real “green” energy by 2050.

by Melissa Torres, US Section representative to International Board

Kristin Alder, Brandy Robinson, Altaira Hatton, Rachel Nagin, and I represented WILPF US at the United Nations Peace Forum on October 29.

Our panel,"Strategic Re/Engagements: Advancing the Women, Peace and Security Agenda over the Next Fifteen Years and Beyond," explored the role of local efforts, policy analyses, and men’s engagement. The panel aimed to create a dialogue in which individuals from multiple perspectives can share and learn from one another enabling and exploring the potential for growth.

Each of spoke from our different fields of expertise: Kristin about WILPF US's pre-NAP consultations and the focus on human security, Brandy about the need to redefine the concepts of violence and armed conflict in order to maximize strategic engagements with 1325, Melissa about looking at immigration and human trafficking through the lens of 1325, Rachel about racial violence, particularly in inner cities, food security, and budgeting, and Altaira about women and mediation. The goal was to initiate dialogue about ways we can strategize and re-engage in ways that might allow us to overcome current obstacles.

I think it's important to point out that this work is part of our connection to and continued work with the UN through PeaceWomen, Reaching Critical Will, WILPF International, and the WILPF US United Nations programs (Practicum and Local 2 Global). Brandy, Kristin, and I all joined WILPF through the UN Practicum, and all of us are now young leaders in WILPF. Brandy is a branch co-chair, I'm on the international and national boards and serve as Practicum faculty, Rachel and Kristin were our UN representatives, and Altaira was our treasurer.
 

PHOTO: Top row: Deputy Foreign Minister of Republic of Macedonia, Dragana Kiprijanovska; WILPF US International Board Representative Dr. Melissa I. M. Torres; Portland WILPF Co-President Brandy Robinson, Rachel Nagin. Bottom row: Kristin Alder and Altaira Hatton.

by Ellen Thomas, Disarm/End Wars Committee

So many new, serious campaigns!  Check these out, and post info about others on WILPF US Facebook. Disarm/End Wars Committee has developed and/or been asked to help with some notable current campaigns to stop nuclear weapons deployment in Europe, nuclear waste transportation in the US, and to promote solutions: I-Can Humanitarian Pledge, World Beyond War, and the Proposition One nuclear weapons abolition and energy conversion campaign to support HR-1976 in Congress.

Here are some current campaigns that everybody should know about and, if inspired, endorse:

• No nuclear weapons in Europe petition
  "Do not upgrade the US nuclear weapons in Europe. Remove them..."
• I-CAN Humanitarian Pledge on abolition of nuclear weapons.
• World Beyond War pledge on ending all wars.
• Flush the TPP is an open letter to Congress related to the Pacific Pivot and thus to disarmament and nuclear weapons abolition.  It presents the US campaign point-of-view which ignores the military component of the Pacific Pivot. Nancy Price and Marybeth Gardam invite all WILPF members to co-sponsor along with Earth Democracy, Corporations v Democracy, and Disarm/End Wars Committees. 
• Talks on ending the violence in Syria began on Friday, October 30 in Vienna so the imminent threat of nuclear extinction is again lessened, though not removed. We are now revising our open letter on the crisis and on using the Kellogg Briand Pact, the UN Charter and the International Criminal Court as existing tools to stop the violence.  Contact Carol Urner Carol.disarm@gmail.com if you wish to join the process. Read the European Union account of the meeting from the one woman among the 18 governments represented. Federica Mogherini hopeful after intensive Syria talks.
• California and Oregon have just made voting registration automatic for every eligible state resident. If you live in any other of the 48 states you can join the campaign of Roots Action and Nation magazine to do the same in your own state. States already have the records that make this possible. Take a few minutes to inform yourself and begin the process in your own state.
• Stop Fukushima Freeways’ media blitz was launched successfully October 27, but the threat of reopening Yucca Mountain repository has not gone away. The campaign website shows the perils of the massive and unnecessary radioactive waste transportation that would occur across the US if the moribund and scientifically-indefensible Yucca Mountain, Nevada waste dump were to be revived. Maps showing transportation routes are displayed and being developed. Check with NIRS or Beyond Nuclear if your area is affected.
• And of course discuss with your own Representative, and his/her staff, the need to co-sponsor HR-1976, the nuclear weapons abolition and energy conversion bill introduced by Eleanor Holmes Norton 12 times since the voters of DC demanded she do so in 1993 with successful voter initiative 37. Now we believe it is a bill for which the time has come. For too long those who seek power and profits at the expense of people, peace and the planet have been leading us on the road to extinction with promotion of endless wars for profit. This bill makes peace profitable!  Even if this bill is never passed we need it now to show us clearly an alternative way to survival.

  Also download the Dear Colleague Letter  and deliver it to your Representative and his/her local office. If possible, make an appointment to discuss HR 1976 with your Representative or his/her local staff. Contact Ellen Thomas et@prop1.org with questions and to report back on progress or problems. See a history of the bill, which we call “Proposition One,” and follow the Proposition One Campaign blog on Facebook.

Be sure to check out the WILPF US Facebook page where members can post photographs and reports of WILPF events and share information.

Send your submissions to Ellen Thomas et@prop1.org  and/or Joan Bazar joanbazar@sbcglobal.net  Please put "for Facebook" and the title in the subject line.

by Judy Adams, Peninsula Branch exhibit committee member.

The Peninsula Branch (begun in 1922) is reaching out to new generations with its WILPF Centennial exhibit and grand opening event in a Palo Alto, CA, library November 14-December 24. Oral histories dating from 1979 onward were the start.

Why an educational exhibit and video when action is critical; how can they move people to action? Our goal is to educate and inspire others to work for peaceful change through WILPF, with its century of research and action.

The Women's Peace Oral History Project (WPOHP), started with one interview in 1979 with our branch member Lygia Callejo, who faithfully staffed the local Peace Center office for years.  The project grew, with generous support from JAPA's funding in 1985 for WILPF's 70th anniversary, peace history classes taught at Stanford and San Jose State, involvement of other local San Francisco Bay Area branches, and volunteers from US branches – in all, interviews with 90 women were conducted and preserved.

Our exhibit will showcase some of these stories and educate about the rich history of WILPF as an agent for involvement and peaceful change.  There is something that a single person can do, when linked with others in an international organization to back that action up.

 The materials and interviews collected by the WPOHP, were donated to Stanford University's Archive of Recorded Sound and on WILPF's 100th anniversary, Stanford announced that the audio of the interviews could be streamed or downloaded from a Stanford site. .

Armed with materials from this collection, including early scrapbooks during our branch's founding 93 years ago, and a wealth of photographs, our committee began research for the exhibit.  We expanded the research to major photo archives at the Swarthmore College Peace Collection, the photograph collections at the Library of Congress, WILPF's own webpages and Peace & Freedom issues, photos from our local Historical Society, among other sources. An exhausting project, but one that gave us a respect for WILPF and a desire to educate others about the power of women to work for peace. Dare we try to end war through education as well as action on the “front lines” of protest?

 Our project, an exhibit on the history, goals and accomplishments of WILPF, and completion of a digitized version of a 1983 slide show originally presented to our branch as a “report” of the ongoing interviews, seeks to inform and inspire our community to work for peace and to make the connection between funding for human needs projects vs military spending.

Encouraged by funding from a 2015 WILPF mini-grant, were able to complete our project, which will be showcased at an opening event Nov. 12 at a local library. The exhibit will have a high profile during its six weeks installation.  We hope to create community awareness of peace and justice issues and of the goals and principles of WILPF.  We hope to increase our active membership and re-energize our branch, giving our activities a higher profile.

 The exhibit is highly visual with many photos and text about WILPF’s founding, and our own branch’s history and activities, including our Raging Grannies’ use of songs to entertain and “teach peace.”  We have a map highlighting International WILPF branches and their activities, and a WILPF timeline.  Using photos, posters, maps, and a colorful branch banner, we are enlivening the lobby of a major library in our city, and hope to educate and inspire library patrons, students and others, to work for the goals of WILPF and join our branch in forming coalitions to strengthen peace and justice efforts. We hope to “travel” the exhibit and video presentation to schools, churches and our branch libraries, and libraries in neighboring cities, to gently raise awareness of issues, and to encourage people to work for peace and justice.

We are using WILPF's 2015 slogan, "Women's Power to Stop War" as our exhibit's title, and the video uses another WILPF slogan from the ‘80s for its title, "Listen to Women for a Change," to acknowledge and celebrate the change that the women of WILPF have wrought on the world's struggle for peace and justice.

Although our project comes at the end of WILPF’s 100th year, we look forward to the future, and the importance of our work of the next 100 years.  We hope to attract new members to strengthen our branch, whose “shining hour” was during the Vietnam War, when the power of protest and united action brought an end to that war. Despite a century of conflict and violence in the world, we still have hope; we believe in community peace education and the strength of WILPF’s support to help us each discover “Women’s Power to End War,” and not give up despite overwhelming odds.

In acknowledgement of our efforts, the city of Palo Alto has issued a proclamation that Armistice Day, November 11th in 2015, be declared "Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Day." The proclamation will be read at our exhibit’s opening, November 12.

Among those working to create the exhibit and event are Cherrill Spencer, Cybele LoVuolo-Bhushan, Lois Salo and other volunteers.

Top photo: Grandmothers’ March in Palo Alto, CA, 1968 during the Vietnam War. WILPF members in the front, from left.: Mary Clarke, Helen Hildreth, then far right, Anne Peabody Brown, branch president.  Photographer unknown.

Inset photo: Branch member Esther Newill in picket line at Lawrence Livermore National Lab protest, California, (‘80s?) photographer unknown