[WCUSP] [Wisewomen] WlLPF,s future for me

[Odile Hugonot Haber]

This is a very beautiful letter Yvonne I like the way you link personal.
national and international work. Activism is what has created WILPF
not structure and some of us should keep in this path. Some women are more
talended around structure and that is needed but what I complain bitterly about
as you do, is that right now the activists are being put out of the
organization and
have no voice on the board. But we are activists and we can and will
change this.

Odile Hugonot Haber

On 12/1/07, yvonne simmons <roweenayvonne at yahoo.com> wrote:
>  Lately I have been made from the present to think
> more deeply into my soul about why I work with WILPF.
> One of the reasons are the wonderful women and friends
> I have in our organization working for a world that is
> just and not violent and respects all, peoples,
> animals and the environment. With what has been
> happening recently nationally and internationally,
> then not being dealt with, out in the open,
> transparently to see what the problems are and do
> something about them. I have been concerned how some
> women on  the National WILPF board have been
> conducting themselves with the future of  national
> WILPF.  It seems so institutional and I believe that
> they think it will improve WILPF. I do not. We are
> grass roots not corporate.Then I started thinking when
> one member spoke about young WILPF and the age, 35 and
> under, to her youth was 0-18 years And what I thought
> of was my own youth. At 35 years old I could have been
> a grandmother because of violent rape when I was 15
> years old. I had an illegal abortion with Soap suds
> and disinfectant, then sat on buckets of hot water in
> terrible pain. The hospital saved my life and after a
> few weeks in the hospital returned to the street life
> I was used to.
>
> There have been many violent situations that I have
> survived as many other young girls and women have. I
> think of the Congo and the horrendous violence against
> women  and girls there and the young Congelese woman
> at the INT. Congress and her family in Britain and
> their pain.
>
>  Travelling was my education ,being on the road , in
> many countries, hitchhiking and finding small jobs to
> realize how different and the same  peoples were in
> Italy , Europe, Greece , Turkey , Persia , Afghanistan
> , the West Indies , Morocco etc. Daily they did
> similar things only differently depending on the
> culture.
>
>  That was my education  mostly after I was 21 years
> old and  I had met life and love and beauty.
>
>     I found my way in life and did not talk of most of
> my experiences and scars. I always loved helping
> people and animals and remembered I had marched and
> rallied with the beatniks and CND in the early 1960.
>
>  WILPF, Portand has been doing the Clothesline Project
> for almost 17 years. I am the keeper of the shirts and
> see that violence against the female sex crosses all
> nationalities, color, class, religion, sexual
> orientation etc. I was proud when Pat Hollingsworth
> made me a member of WILPF. I had never been a member
> of any group and loved what WILPF was doing.
>
> Now I find myself thinking to just do the humanitarian
> work, social justice  and peace work as always but do
> I need WILPF  to do it when their emphasis is not the
> same as mine right now?
>  I am wondering if I fit in and I am no longer ashamed
> , by society's standards, of who I was through no
> fault of my own.
>
>  In Peace Yvonne.
>
>
>
>
>
>       ____________________________________________________________________________________
> Get easy, one-click access to your favorites.
> Make Yahoo! your homepage.
> http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wisewomen mailing list
> Post to this list by sending an email to this address: Wisewomen at wilpf.org
> To unsubscribe or change your options as a user, click here: http://wilpf.org/mailman/listinfo/wisewomen_wilpf.org
>