We are bringing our members together online this Autumn for what we hope will be informative and inspiring WILPF Connect programme. The webinars and discussions will introduce important topics and speakers, so we hope that you can provide them with a great audience. Save the dates and look out for more information which we shall send soon. Zoom Links will be made available in due course through member mailings. Or email ukwilpf.info@gmail.com
As well as connecting our WILPF UK members, this Connect Programme aims to explore, share and discuss issues connected to WILPF’s three main campaigning themes: disarmament; women, peace and security; and climate justice. All three themes are also connected by human rights.
Disarmament: WILPF promotes a feminist approach to disarmament, foreign policy, peace-building and conflict resolution, and listening to and learning from women’s voices.
Women, Peace and Security: WILPF advocates for sustainable peace, human security, humanitarian responses and human rights initiatives where women, women’s rights and gender issues are always on the agenda.
Climate Justice: WILPF campaigns on environmental justice as a key pathway to peace and a just world. We see the climate emergency, which is displacing people and creating refugees, as a serious cause, and consequence, of global conflict.
We also aim to connect our webinars to significant national and international commemorative and activism days, such as Remembrance Day and Human Rights Day.
Connect Programme Webinar Schedule
October Tuesday 10th 7.00pm: Connecting with our International Work – Sylvie Ndongmo, WILPF International President
Sylvie is a human rights and peace leader with over 27 years experience including ten within WILPF. She has a multi-disciplinary background with a track record of multiple socio-economic development projects implemented to improve policies, practices and peace-oriented actions. Sylvie is the founder of WILPF Cameroon and was the Section’s president until 2022. She co-coordinated the African Working Group before her election as Africa Representative to WILPF’s International Board in 2018. A teacher by profession and an African Union Trainer in peace support operations, Sylvie has extensive experience advocating for the political and social rights of women in Africa and worldwide. She is currently president of WILPF International.
October Thursday 19th (Time TBC): Connecting with our Climate Justice Activism – Greenpeace
This ‘climate cafe’ webinar will include WILPF and Greenpeace activists in discussion about how we might work together to challenge the Climate Crisis. Greenpeace is a global network of independent campaigning organisations that use peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.
October/November (Date TBC): Connecting with Anti-war Campaigning and Peace-building – Claire Duncanson, WILPF Academic
Claire will introduce this discussion about the war and prospect for peace in Ukraine. We are hoping to also have Ukrainian input on this discussion. In the meantime, here are some recommended articles from WILPF International: ‘A subjective report of the International Peace Conference for Ukraine in Vienna.’
November Tuesday 14th 7:00pm: Connecting Mining and Militarism, and Commemorating Remembrance Day – Daniel Selwyn, The London Mining Network
Daniel Selwyn is a researcher and educator for the London Mining Network. He has authored reports including ‘Martial Mining’, which highlights the links between mining, the international arms trade, and warfare. From the minerals needed to produce weapons to the military force needed to secure and police mines themselves, the report spotlights large-scale mining as a militarised process.
December Friday 8th (Time TBC): Connecting Feminism with Human Rights, and Commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – Helen Pankhurst
Helen is a women’s rights activist, write and academic and also the great-granddaughter of Emmilene Pankhurst and granddaughter of Sylvia Pankhurst, leaders of the British suffragette movement. She is currently Senior Advisor to CARE International, working in the UK and in Ethiopia. Helen works locally and internationally as a women’s rights’ activist and coalition convenor, academic, university chancellor, international development worker, author and speaker. She is the author of ‘Deeds Not Words‘, the Story of Women’s Rights, Then and Now, 2018. She has over 30 years’ experience of advocacy, collaborative campaigning, developing organisational strategies, personal and financial management, action research, programing, fundraising and representation. Helen has worked as Ethiopia’s Country Representative for WaterAid; Head of International Programmes at WOMANKIND Worldwide and as the Regional Manager for the Horn of Africa at the Agency for Cooperation and Research in Development (ACORD). She is also a trustee of ActionAid and WSUP.
We look forward to engaging with you online very soon!