Feel the power of sisterhood!
“After 15 years of war we all agreed on one single issue — peace. It got a result. Feel the power in your sisterhood!” The words come from the Liberian peace and women’s activist Lois Brutus, one of the inspirational speakers at the Reaching out to Make a Change conference in Montenegro.
The tourist season in the small seaside resort of Becici in Montenegro has not yet come to life. But it jumped the gun last weekend when 100 women’s rights activists from the Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation’s partner organisations in the Balkans arrived at the village to take part in a 3-day long meeting together with women from Iran, Liberia, the Middle East, southern Caucasus and Sweden.
The main aim of the meeting was to discuss the challenges facing the women’s movement in the Balkans and the rest of the world, to find new energy, make contacts and exchange knowledge and experience. How can we be better at reaching out with our message without exposing ourselves to security risks? How do we make room for the new generation of women’s rights activists? There were plenty of issues on the agenda.
Lectures were sandwiched between workshops and small group discussions. One programme item that made an impression was Ambassador Lois Brutus’s speech on her experiences from the women’s movement in Liberia.
– What an amazing speaker, said Eleni Jajcari from the Une gruaja organisation in Albania.
– I hardly knew anything about Liberia before. What fantastic strategies for change they have used, that’s something we can learn from, said Korana Radman from Babe in Croatia.
The film Pray the Devil Back to Hell, about the Liberian women’s movement, was shown along with the Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation’s own film Women’s War, about sexual violence in DR Congo.
– Actually I had no idea about the situation in Congo until I’d seen the film. It was an eye-opener. The war has been going on for 14 years, why isn’t the media reporting on the things that are happening? asked Maja Vikmanic from the Croatian organisation Zenska Soba after the film.
How can social media and theatre be used as an instrument in advocacy work was two different workshop themes. Mira Vilusic from Horizonti in Bosnia–Herzegovinas thought that the mix of large and small meetings created dynamics to the conference:
– I got a surge of energy here that I’ve never experienced at traditional conferences where you often sit in large groups and listen to lectures.
10 years with Resolution 1325
Ten years have passed since the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. Many discussions at the conference were about how the women’s movement could use the 10th anniversary in October to highlight the efforts needed to put the resolution into practical use. Many women expressed their disappointment over so little having happened since 2002. Sanam Anderlini, UN expert from Iran/USA, said in her speech that the women in the Balkans played a large part in a resolution on women’s security and participation in the peace process even coming onto the UN agenda.
– It was you, in the throes of war, who ensured that women’s participation in the peace process found a place on the UN Security Council agenda. You are entitled to demand that its implementation speeds up. It’s needed. Unfortunately, nobody else will do it for you.
Various suggestions for actions and initiatives were discussed, and work commenced on a joint appeal from all the women present.
At the end of the conference many women returned home with plenty of new ideas and contacts. Bojana Minovic from the Fenomena organisation in Serbia had this to say:
– That which has meant the most to me was the meeting with the women from Kosovo. Despite living barely 100 kilometres from the border, I’ve never previously cooperated with women’s organisations in Kosovo, now we have met, talked and laughed together. This is the beginning of something new.
Anna Lithander