Introducing Our “Creatives” and Their New Listserv

by Gloria McMillan
Tucson Branch & CCS Subcommittee of AHR

We have a “new kid on the block” in WILPF. We are the Advancing Human Rights committee’s CCS subcommittee and we have created a new e-list.

COMMUNICATIONS
CULTURE/THE ARTS
SENSITIZATION

Why should WILPF members join the CCS list?

Dianne Blais, WILPF US Secretary, sees CCS as a potential issue committee in its own right because it connects to so many other issues and committees. Outreach is crucial for WILPF’s survival. Diane expresses the hope that we will start to give communication strategies due attention. She notes that we cannot overestimate communication’s importance in getting our ideas outside our own membership venues.

COMMUNICATIONS

We will direct our attention to gaining more access for WILPF and its various issues and missions with this communications component of our list. We have found that our goal as a subcommittee of WILPF’s AHR can be furthered by conferring about strategies to gain more broadcast media and print news access. For instance, by attending and reporting on the Community Advisory Board meetings of our local PBS TV stations, we can learn to get underreported issues and all sides of issues reported in our own community’s media.

But more than access to media, what we say and how we say it make a difference. We can stand and shout our message at the world or use the kind of speech that invites people in, even those who somewhat disagree. How do we become more effective so we are reaching more people and not just “preaching to the choir”?

CULTURE/THE ARTS

Culture and the arts are valuable invitational modes of communication!

Shilpa Pandey, WILPF US’s Membership Committee Chair, says that in India nobody underestimates the innovative and lasting effects of the arts, especially theatre, which helped so much in the struggle for national independence.

Yet our WILPF posts often fall flat when sent in the utilitarian prose style expected in social action-news-oriented lists across WILPF. These e-lists were not set up as incubators of the arts, where people’s unique individual voices and attempts may first come off as a bit “strange” or “eccentric.” On the CCS list, we will listen. We are here to discuss, work collaboratively, and promote any creative idea or project that has a social action aspect to it no matter how oblique.

Philip Cole, WILPF US’s At-large National Board member, points to the H. G. Wells play on YouTube, The Crystal Egg, produced by Planet Zoom Players, as an example of how learning not to fear difference and to get out of one’s “comfort zone” can be embodied in engaging theatre. Members of WILPF participated in this play.

SENSITIZATION

One generation does not speak for all or any other subgroup in our diverse population. We will creatively construct ways to make our assumptions a bit more visible. That way each part of our diverse social tapestry can speak to every other strand. Because we “creatives” think by association rather than linearly, we tend to understand difference, and we often generate novel and surprising ideas and solutions to problems. Our CCS listserv will try to create and share methods to help with our awareness of audience in our WILPF work.

Deb Livingston, Chair of the WILPF US’s Tucson Branch, agrees that getting out of “comfort zones” when stimulated by creative performances and artworks can lead to growth and healthy adaptive group behaviors. In this Deb is seconded by Shilpa Pandey, who says that it is a must for WILPF to learn to attract youth and to look for new methods of engagement that might incorporate youth culture. Sensitization means opening up to two-way conversations, being interested in what prospective members and interns are interested in, then creating events to match.

How to Join CCS and Begin Posting YOUR IDEAS!

We hope you will visit CCS and tell friends about it.

To JOIN the CCS Listserv, use the form found at this link!
General information about the mailing list is also here. 

Once you have joined using the form at the link above, send your message to: ahr-ccs@neleth.com

If you ever want to unsubscribe or change your options (e.g., switch to or from digest mode, change your password, etc.), visit your subscription page at this link:

Questions?

Contact Gloria McMillan: scifi200111@gmail.com