NEWS
by Ellen Thomas and Carol Urner for the DISARM/End Wars Issue Committee
Sister Megan Rice is joining WILPF and promoting the Nuclear Free Future Bill, HR 1650, from prison. Up-to-date news and background information can be accessed from Transform Now Plowshares. Several of our WILPF members have been attending the trial and sentencing hearings and are in close touch with Sister Megan. If you would like to join those sending her supportive emails in prison contact Coralie Farlee at cfarlee@mindspring.com.
Have you contacted your Representative yet on HR 1650? Background and resources to help you in meeting with your own representative are available from WILPF. Just follow the link for more information and resources. Keep in touch with Ellen Thomas at et@prop1.org regarding your contacts and results. All members of the House Progressive Caucus should certainly be approached as soon as possible. Raul Grijalva (Arizona), co-chair of the Caucus, has already become a co-sponsor. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, who introduced HR 1650, is invited to speak on the bill for nuclear weapons abolition and conversion to a truly green economy at the international conference of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. They will be coming from around the world to Washington D.C.for their meetings February 25-27. John Conyers, Dennis Kucinich (PNND UN Rep.), Barbara Lee, Carolyn Maloney, Edward Markey (PNND Vice-Chair) and George Miller are among the current US members of PNND.
WILPF is helping member Alice Slater attend the Nayarit, Mexico conference on the Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear War. Jackie Cabasso, and many other of our US partners will be there joining prominent nuclear abolitionists from Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America. Most will be seeking a government to sponsor negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Ban treaty. Alice Slater is an enthusiastic promoter of this process. The long sought Convention on Abolition of Nuclear Weapons remains stuck in the United Nations Committee for Disarmament where it has languished for almost twenty years due to the former recalcitrance of the United States and now resistance of Pakistan. In the meantime, nuclear weapons, the most extreme and diabolical of all weapons invented by men, still threaten all life on earth and there is as yet no treaty banning them. Go to The Case for a Ban Treaty. Explore the site further for dozens of resources, videos and creative ideas for promoting such a treaty now as a serious step toward nuclear weapons abolition. If a nuclear weapons ban could be like the Chemical Weapons Ban treaty just ratified by Syria, it would include destruction of existing stock and production facilities plus inspection to make sure compliance is continuing and complete. Alice is willing to participate in meetings organized by WILPF members and Branches to discuss what we can do to promote a nuclear weapons ban treaty.
Jackie Cabasso and Odile Hugonot Huber still have much to share with us on the December conferences in Haifa and in Ramallah. Conferences were organized by Israeli activists who want Israel to participate in negotiations for a nuclear and WMD free zone in the Middle East. All the Arab nations and Iran support negotiations which were scheduled to begin in Helsinki last December. However Israel's Netanyahu objected strenuously and Obama cancelled them. See Odile's entry for the Middle East Committee which includes the final Declaration from Haifa and a petition we can sign. Jackie is already giving public presentations on the Haifa conference and you can hear her discussion on a popular west coast radio program. Both women are willing to meet with other WILPF members. Jackie has already shared in meetings organized by San Jose and San Francisco Branches.
Looking ahead, it's time to register now for the March international conference of the Global Network on Keeping Space for Peace. It will be in Santa Barbara and includes a vigil at Vandenberg Air force Base where MacGregor Eddy and other WILPFers have long been organizing protest events against arming the heavens and nuclear ICBM missile tests. There will be a focus on the Pacific Pivot which is already creating rising tensions and could lead to war with China. Drones and robotic weapons will also be hot topics with plenty of resources available.
Be sure to look at the entry from WILPFer Leah Bolger about participating in the drone quilt project featured on the cover of the fall issue Peace & Freedom. And if you are worried about militarized and automated drones and want to take action contact Marjorie Van Cleef at mvc@igc.org. Marge and Joan Ecklein are now collecting information from Branches and individual WILPFers on what we are already doing, and looking for ways we can better support each other and share information. It is also time to prepare for the month of drone actions in April in cooperation with Code Pink and a wide range of other organizations.
As you can see, there is much to be done. Join us in this important work and together, we can change the world and promote peace!
The Global Climate Convergence for People, Planet, Peace over Profit that I reported on in the January eNews, has released a video showing leaders from across the spectrum of grassroots justice movements before a packed auditorium at the January 18 launch in Chicago. Each speaker spoke from the heart that it is essential to come together to build a more unified movement for justice that is deeper and stronger than the interconnected crisis of the economy, ecology, peace and democracy, which all have their roots in a system driven by profit.
The convergence is based on new understanding that the climate crisis is on track to dismantle civilization as soon as 2050. This intensifies all our struggles for justice, and creates urgency for collaboration and unified action. The Convergence will help to multiply, amplify and build synergy across grassroots justice movements.
The first groundbreaking action campaign of the Convergence called "Earth Day to May Day, 10 Days to Change!" was also launched on January 18. The Earth Day to May Day campaign will include actions rallies, marches, festivals, arts and culture, civil liberties and organizer trainings, People’s Movement Assemblies, a global solidarity fast, and much more in communities across the country and beyond.
Soon “support” materials with FAQ sheets on “why the convergence, “reclaiming Earth Day from the corporations and promoting Mother Earth Day,” “lifting up the Chicago origin of May Day and the deepening struggle for worker and immigrant rights,” and a “map” so you can log-in information about your actions will be posted on the Convergence website at www.globalclimateconvergence.org.
The Earth Democracy team invites you to join the Earth Day to May Day call to action and start planning local activities and actions. Already, Chicago, Philadelphia and New Orleans have committed to being one of the 10 hub cities for major events.
Share ideas with your WILPF friends on the discussion board. And please “like” the "Global Climate Covergence" on Facebook.
During the ten days of Earth Day to May Day actions, communities across the US and beyond will rally to support local fronts of struggle while building a united front for People, Planet and Peace over Profit. Education and actions will bring the issues of people, peace and democracy—which are inseparable from ecological survival—into the Earth Day events.
It will promote international Mother Earth Day and the rights of all creatures and ecosystems to survive and self-perpetuate. These rights fundamentally conflict with principles of profit maximization and infinite growth that are devastating human and natural resources. For these reasons, the campaign will counter the current use of Earth Day for corporate green-washing, obscuring corporate responsibility for the accelerating destruction of climate and the environment.
The campaign will highlight the origins and recent history of May Day in the deepening global struggle for worker and immigrant rights. It will bring environmental and climate justice in to the May Day mix, pointing out that working people and immigrants pay a steep price for the economic and health impacts of environmental degradation and fossil fuels. Likewise, climate change hurts working people and the poor, who are most vulnerable to the storms, drought, floods, rising seas and greater food prices that climate change brings.
Convergent activists are calling specifically for urgent ecological and economic transformation through an Emergency Green New Deal that’s essential for solving the converging crises we face. This includes universal jobs, healthcare, education, food and housing security, economic and political democracy, demilitarization and an end to fossil fuel use by 2030.
This campaign links traditionally independent grassroots justice movements and includes anti-poverty, labor, peace, economic, racial, Indigenous, immigrant, environmental justice and democracy groups as well as Medicare for All, sustainable food and natural health advocates and Occupy Wall Street networks among others.
Top Image: The WILPF Earth Democracy logo was designed and donated by www.ciafront.org.
Richard Monje, Vice President of Workers United, opened the forum saying, “We are committed to working together across sectors to understand each other’s struggles and cultures to break down barriers and respectfully build alliances to make this convergence and the first Earth Day to May Day actions successful to build toward 2015.”
Tim DeChristopher, a climate justice leader recently released from a two year jail term for protecting fragile public wilderness from illegal, destructive fossil fuel extraction said, “It brings me a lot of hope to be in this room of people filled with ideas for the change we want to create in line with our shared values. It is no longer possible to maintain the status quo. It is so vital that we come together in this convergence of all our movements to commit to build the world we know is possible.”
Sheri Mitchell, Indigenous leader and attorney from the Penobscot Nation said, “This convergence is a manifestation of the Rainbow Warrior Prophecy, told to me many years ago by a Hopi Elder, that when that time of great crisis arrived people from every corner of the world would rise up... I am honored to stand here with you knowing that I do not do this work alone.”
Chris Williams, author and organizer for System Change Not Climate Change, added, “What we have been doing up to this point has not been working. Clearly we have to come together in a new political movement. We need to think about how we change our values --- to value human relationships and our relationship to the planet and nature.”
Deeq Abdi, a youth organizer, student and poet from the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign called out to the young audience saying, “It’s our turn. We need some young leaders to come up and help take the movement forward... We are all fighting the same machine - corporations, capitalists and the people who are destroying the planet slowly, but surely.”
Margaret Flowers, healthcare and anti-TPP activist of PopularResistance.org, commented, “I learned from my fight for single payer healthcare that we cannot sell out our agenda to a political system that is corrupt. History tells us that if we come together and work strategically that people power is much stronger than the power we face. It is up to us to determine what we put on the table. We have to engage in deep political education and at the same time continue to build the alternatives that are now happening in communities across the U.S. and across the world.”
Mic Crenshaw, cultural worker and chair of the Political Committee of the Hip Hop Congress, led the audience in call and response before his spoken word performance, saying, “Revolution is right here, people's power is right here, liberation is right here, in every city, every hood and every block… everywhere.”
Jill Stein, physician and environmental health organizer, summed up, “Working together across fronts of struggle and national borders allows us to harness the transformative power we already possess as a thousand separate movements sweeping the globe, rising up to stop the global assault on our economy, ecology, peace and democracy. The growing climate disaster intensifies all these struggles --- worsening the attack on workers’ rights, poverty, resource depletion and war that further drive climate change. We are all in this together. We must act together and we must act now.”
by the Human Trafficking Subcommittee of Advancing Human Rights
The Intercept Human Trafficking Campaign was created by the United Methodist Women (UMW) to raise awareness of the spike in human trafficking at the Super Bowl and other Large Sport Events. Now in it’s fourth year, UMW invited WILPF and other secular and ecumenical organizations to partner in the Feb. 2, 2014 campaign at Metlife Stadium in E. Rutherford, NJ and for the long-term effort to end Human Trafficking.
As the Super Bowl has ended, other large sport events will follow and human traffickers will follow them! But human trafficking occurs every day of the year everywhere! Never has a Super Bowl seen such an extensive and concerted effort to make awareness a vital year round tool of prevention and prosecution than in New Jersey. Those who recognize the signs of human trafficking will gain the confidence to report suspicious activity and traffickers know that the general public is on heightened alert. More importantly, will male customers realize that they are contributing to a heinous crime and that the general public is on to them? The “Boys will be Boys” attitude that carries this miserable process must change.
by Sydney Gliserman and Ellen Schwartz, WILPF National Program Committee Co-Chairs
We are looking for a WILPF-US Representative to the US Social Forum (USSF)'s National Planning Committee. WILPF-US has had a representative on the NPC, the decision-making body of the organization, since the first USSF in 2007. Responsibilities include:
- Staying up-to-date on relevant issues and procedural matters;
- Participating in a once-monthly conference call;
- Participating in one to two working groups;
- Possibly attending the next USSF in 2015 (will be held simultaneously in several interconnected gatherings located around the country); and
- Communicating actions/relevant information with the WILPF-US Program Committee via the program listserv or through attendance on the committee's once-monthly conference call.
We anticipate the time commitment for the position to be approximately 2-5 hours per week. Interested individuals should contact the Program Co-Chairs, Sydney Gliserman (sydney.gliserman@gmail.com) and Ellen Schwartz (ellen@nicetechnology.com) for further information. Please reply by March 11.
Individuals interested in the USSF, but not in this particular role, should note that there are many other opportunities for participation in the USSF process. These include attending or participating in local and regional organizing committees, as well as the working groups (gender justice, poverty, communications-media, and others)—which are open and looking for new members. Consult the USSF website http://www.ussocialforum.net/ for more information.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), more commonly known as “drones,” are responsible for the deaths of more than 2,400 people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, an independent British non-profit organization. Use of Predator or Reaper drones, which carry 500-pound Hellfire missiles, started with President Bush in the “Global War on Terror.” They have been used with increased frequency by the Obama administration to assassinate people in direct violation of international law. Not only is the US murdering people in countries with which the US is not at war, the killing is being done by a civilian agency, the CIA, in complete secrecy with no virtually no accountability. It is difficult to know the precise number of deaths due to the remote locations of the strikes and the secrecy surrounding the program. The majority of victims have not been identified, but include hundreds of women and children.
The Drones Quilt Project was created as a way to acknowledge the deaths caused by these drones, and to memorialize the victims. Participants in the Drones Quilt Project are asked to make a quilt block, containing the name of a drone victim. Blocks are also made to remember the unidentified victims through the words “Unnamed Woman,” “Beloved Grandfather,” “Cherished Daughter,” or something similar. The blocks are then sewn together and made into a quilt. The quilts are one component of the Drones Quilt Project exhibit—the other two being large “information panels” which help educate the viewer, and a two-sided handout identifying many anti-drones resources as well as a list of 16 action ideas.
The Drones Quilt Project exhibit debuted at the Veterans For Peace convention in Madison, WI in August 2012 and has since traveled to Iowa, Oregon, Maine and Washington DC. In February it will travel to Vassar College, then Boston and Cleveland.
How WILPF members can help:
Four quilts have been completed so far, and the fifth is in the works, but many more blocks are needed to memorialize all of the victims. You need not have any sewing or quilting expertise to create a quilt block. The name may be embroidered, painted, written with a marker, glued buttons, or anything else you can think of. (You can see photos of all the completed blocks at the Drones Quilt Project website to get ideas.) Block making can be a great group project for adults and children. Some of the block makers have been very moved by the act of making a quilt block.
Here are the thoughts of one participant:
“For me, to work on this quilt square and think about one twelve-year-old boy’s life being suddenly taken from him and from his family and from this world, by a machine up in the sky, personalized the impact of the drones. It could have been my son. Joseph Stalin said, “One death is a tragedy, and a million is a statistic.” To maintain our humanity, we need to remember that each victim of war was a real person, a beating heart, someone who laughed and loved and had dreams. Working on this piece of fabric was a meditation in our shared humanity.” –Laurie Childers, Corvallis, Oregon
Another way WILPF members can support the Drones Quilt Project is by hosting the exhibit in their towns. As more quilts are created, the exhibit will be able to be shown in more than one place simultaneously. Eventually it is hoped that the exhibit will travel around the world, educating the public, raising awareness, and memorializing the victims, through the power of collective art.
Information about making a quilt block and hosting the exhibit is available on the Drones Quilt Project website, www.dronesquiltproject.wordpress.com or by contacting Leah Bolger, the Project Coordinator, directly: leahbolger@comcast.net. The Drones Quilt Project was featured on the cover of the latest Peace & Freedom magazine.
The WILPF Practicum in Advocacy is a one-week program that brings US college and graduate women to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Students learn about human rights principles, methodologies, and the UN system. As delegates of WILPF, they become familiar with WILPF's advocacy work and gain insight and experience in international human rights work through official UN and WILPF events, and both formal and informal encounters with activists and NGOs from around the world. Students make professional and personal connections that benefit them as women, students, and peacemakers. Moreover, each student uses the knowledge gained during the Practicum to complete a WILPF advocacy project. Projects are diverse in nature but last year, they included the ongoing establishment of two new WILPF branches.
This year we have 20 students in the Practicum. They are looking forward to the opportunity to learn about for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and our role with the United Nations in ending and preventing war, ensuring that women are represented at all levels in the peace-building process, defending the human rights of women, and promoting social, economic and political justice. These are this year’s Practicum attendees:
Christina Castellani:
Christina Castellani, an M.A. candidate in Sustainable International Development at Brandeis University, holds a B.A. in International Affairs from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Since 2006, she has worked as an English teacher as a Foreign Language in Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand, where she worked as Program Director for a start-up implementing education for children and refugees. Christina has also worked on projects in Uganda designed to raise education, livelihood, and health awareness. Most recently, Christina taught English in Saudi Arabia to the first generation of women receiving higher education at Princess Nora University.
Heather Ciociola:
After graduating from Vassar College with a degree in History, Heather Ciociola spent 20 years in leadership roles in advertising and marketing agencies and large corporations before deciding to switch careers to help make a difference in people’s lives. Now, a first-year MSW student at Rutgers University, she is pursuing a degree in Non-Profit Management concentration and a Policy Area of Emphasis.
Jenna Cooper:
Jenna Cooper is a second year graduate student at the University of Houston, obtaining her masters in macro social work with a specialization in political justice. For the past two years she has dedicated her focus to human trafficking by working with victims directly, as well as from a policy standpoint.
Maria Teresa Roca de Togores:
Maria Teresa Roca de Togores, is a twenty year-old Georgetown University student. Originally from Madrid, Spain, she is a a Junior double-majoring in Government and American Musical Culture. She has never previously been exposed to the subject of women’s issues and peacekeeping until this past fall semester, when she took a class on religious freedom. Since this class, she has found a passion and great interest in readings and discussions about women’s issues.
Rachael Gold-Brown:
Rachael is a MA candidate for Sustainable International Development and Coexistence and Conflict at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University. She served in the US Peace Corps in Rwanda 2009-2011. In Rwanda, she mobilized and organized women and vulnerable children to create their own support groups to develop small business initiatives through a medium of creative activities. Rachael remained in Rwanda to teach literature and language at the premier International High School where she developed curriculum that integrated artistic and creative methods for teaching English language and the Millennium Development Goals for civic participation amongst youth.
Dixie Hairston:
Dixie Hairston is a second year, macro-level Social Work graduate student specializing in political social work at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. Dixie is passionate about working toward social and economic justice.
Courtney Harchaoui:
Courtney Harchaoui is a first-year MA student in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at the University of Cincinnati. She received her BA in Political Science from the University of Dayton, in her hometown of Dayton, Ohio.
Elynn Kann:
Elynn Kann is a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, majoring in Sociology with certificates in Global Health and Gender and Women’s studies. Through her coursework and international experiences she have developed a passion for women’s health and well-being, and hopes to become an advocate for women worldwide.
Heather Lipkovich:
Heather Lipkovich is a second year Master of Public Health Student in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan.
Alyssa Mouton:
Alyssa Mouton is a dual degree graduate student at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan. She will receive a Master of Public Policy and a Master of Public Health in May 2014.
Brandy Robinson:
Brandy G. Robinson is a L.L.M Graduate Student in Transnational Law at Willamette University College of Law in Salem, Oregon. She graduated with a J.D. over 10 years ago and has been a college professor for many years. She is redefining her career by choosing to focus on issues she is passionate about.
Ana Rodriguez:
Ana Rodriguez, a second year Macro Social Work graduate student at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, is pursuing a specialization in Political Social Work.
Nicole Ronquillo:
Nicole Ronquillo is an Anthropology major in her senior year at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Mbasireh Saidybah:
Mbasireh Saidybah is a graduate student at the Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. She is pursuing a dual master’s degree in Sustainable International Development and Coexistence and Conflict management. She holds a BA in International Studies and Global Health from the University of Washington, and a diploma from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, Netherlands. Mbasireh has over ten years of experience international development, with focuses in Program Development, fundraising and monitoring and evaluation, primarily in Gambia, where she served as a Fundraising Officer with Action Aid in Gambia.
Lindsay Shepardson:
Lindsey Shepardson is a senior double major in Spanish and Women’s & Gender Studies with a concentration in Public Policy at Wellesley College. She is currently interning in the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and has previously interned in the Office of the Vice President at the White House.
Arielle Stephens:
Arielle Stephens is a second year Clinical MSW student at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She is an advocate within her university and the community, through her involvement as the Clinical Officer and Student Ambassador, and a founding member of an anti-trafficking student organization called Beyond the Shadows. Arielle has completed advocacy and medical social work in India, Kenya and Europe. Arielle is currently completing a Clinical Fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Christina Sudduth:
Christina Sudduth is in her second year as a Master of Public Health candidate at the University of South Florida, with concentrations in Women’s Health and Global Health. She also works part-time as a regional coordinator with the statewide anti-hunger advocacy organization Florida Impact.
Alicia Tambe:
Alicia Tambe is a third year dual degree candidate, studying to obtain her Juris Doctor from Northeastern University School of Law as well as her Masters of Arts in Sustainable International Development from the Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. She is extremely interested in the intersection between human rights and business, corporate accountability, women empowerment, and the rights of a child.
Cecilia Wester:
A graduate student in Social Work from the University of Helsinki, Cecilia Wester is currently studying at the University of Wisconsin.
