Catching up - Thursday and Friday

A minor problem happened on Wednesday - I lost my camera. Not good news. So of course, as soon as I purchased another one, having been told that no, it had not been turned in, my old one showed up! Actually a security person recognized a person that i had taken a picture of, and told her - so it has all worked out, and I now have a second camera - not nearly as good as my first one though. So i can get caught up, and share pictures, taken with two cameras!

Thursday and Friday have been busy days for everyone. Some of the highlights for me:

• Indigenous Women and Girls - hearing the real stories of women from Guatamela; Bolivia, and Equador. The Silesian Sisters have provide the supports for single mothers to become independent. The mothers become involved in the schooling of their children, and begin to develop their own skills. What was impressive was the way the women were organized so that language was not a problem. Each told their story in their own language, but it was shown on an overhead in English.
• Gender and Climate Change: The Untold Story - a panel spoke about the the process leading up to Copenhagen and the actual meetings in Copenhagen as well. Although there were no limits put on NGOs to attend Copenhagen, the NGOs with money to send many delegates, were from business. The session started with a presnetation by Cate Owen, from WEDO, who gave a good history of the women's network in preparation to Copenhagen. She also talked about the real work that went on, where women were engaged in the process, and worked constructively to come up with the best document. Dr. Peju Olukaoya, from WHO was also on the panel, and Govind Kelkar, from UNIFEM. The panel ended with Monique Essed-Fernandes, interim ex. director of WEDO speaking about what must happen at COP 16 - in Mexico. All panelists emphasized that this issue of climate change is going to require a major paradigm shift. Everyone has to be engaged. The stats show that women will die in more numbers in these disasters. It is a complex issue - but women will need to advocate at the national level. We will need Green Economic Development plans. We can integrate CEDAW into the climate change process. Some countries stating do away with Copenhagen accord. Do away with work already done. But if there is agreement to conduct bi lateral agreements, that will exclude civil society.
• Indigenous women will be most affected by climate change. We must consider what kind of development we want. Mainstream development has resulted in loss of land, and decimation of women's traditional knowledge. In the current economic crises, we see the privatization of food and energy. We must have women as equal participants in community affairs, and access to affordable credit.
• The final panel of the day was with wonderful women from Iran. I had heard from some of these women last year, so was very interested to hear more. Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian woman who won the nobel peace prize in 2003 was one of the panelists. It was a most interesting session, with a review of the history of the women's movement. Private space can be violated at any time in Iran for a woman. Polygamy and early marriage are the norm. Political power controls the media. These women are very brave - They are using street theatre - and they gave us a demonstration of what that might look like - to show the terrible unfairness, and human rights abuses with the current practices - whereby a mother can't even make decisions for her child, or for herself - like medical care, or travelling. Why do women keep silent in the face of such violence? These brave women who are trying to use the one million signature campaign to break the taboo, were remarkable in their thoroughness of describing the current situation. It was obvious too, that in the audience, were other women from Iran, who were wanting to discredit these women - saying that they were working from outside of Iran. But it was obvious too, that if they were in Iran, their lives would be very much in danger. The one million signature campaign is making headway - using street theatre and small group meetings, and all hearing the presentation gave them support.