On Research - The Power of Learning from Each Other

Without research we have no information. Without evaluation how can we realize the best way forward? How do we create a thorough way to document all that needs to be done? How do we ensure that there are no repercussions for speaking about what needs to change? 

Do we focus on the easiest to resolve, the most urgent or both? How do we determine priorities? People living in areas of war? People with no food, clean water, or shelter? Girls being kept from school? Women missing and murdered? People held captive in slave labour? In sexual slavery? Women forced into banishment?

World Pulse holds a library of research through our stories. Re-search. To gather information. Research about how women are treated on this planet at this time. We illuminate, document, prove what has taken place, what is taking place, where the emergencies lie, what needs to change. This becomes our library, in a world led by governments and people who continue to be violent intentionally toward women and girls. Researching where this violence happens and by who determines the best road forward, setting priorities and identifying violence in all of its forms. We gather accurate information about the work being done and what needs to be done. We create change by sharing information and finding ways to work together.

Through World Pulse we are able to find each other and know the priorities. We hold the stories of women whose work has been hidden. We detail the ways we are punished for focussing on freedom for women and girls. We have proof that throughout time this work has been degraded and destroyed, and we find ways to protect it. We celebrate our victories and learn what is possible.

This patriarchal system has intentionally hidden the history of women, including the heras, the inventors, the respected leaders. Our research finds and holds safe and sacred this information. This research, the heritage of women, women's traditions, women whose work has been stolen, counteracts this silencing and destruction of information. By intentionally focussing on finding, documenting and preserving what we discover as we dig through history, as we research to bring forward information hidden or ignored, we undo the narratives of what we have been taught, creating a path forward that changes the understanding of what women have accomplished and are capable of doing, and allows us to set priorities, changing the course of this patriarchal domination, opening channels for the leadership of women and the creation of a humanity that is at peace, a humanity that honours and benefits from the contributions of women.

Researching gives us the hidden history of our foremothers and the suppressed news of each other today. Researching into communities allows us to know who is trying to survive in poverty, in captivity, in servitude, under threat, giving us collectively the information needed for what needs to be done. From local to global, this library of emergencies gives us our priorities, the source from which we can continue to plan and increase the work and the healing.

How we gather information

How do we respect the time, the information and ideas given through research? How do we ensure that women speaking out and working for a different world are not punished? How do we ensure that the work done, the priorities spoken are not hidden again and silenced? How do we decide who to include in our knowledge gathering? Do we make assumptions and judgments? Do we examine and heal silencing that takes place out of fear? Are we aware in researching of our own biases and lack of knowledge? Are we open to our own growth in what we do not yet understand has been missing? How do we recognize any negative prejudices we might carry - awareness and lack of awareness of what research is important, what communities might have been overlooked, drawbacks of language barriers, lack of cultural awareness, examining prejudices and peoples too often left out, examining ways in which extra costs or dangers might affect our decisions?

World Pulse has 80,000 members, so many doing powerful grassroots work to rectify the ongoing prejudices and violence toward women and girls. Our trust that this has not always been the way, our knowledge of ways that humans have lived and do live peacefully and respectfully with each other, our determination to end to poverty and war have all been shared and made known by research and the documentation through stories. We continue to be told that this patriarchal system is the only way, yet we know in our hearts, reinforced by our research and stories with each other that this is not true. What a wealth we have in what we are able to do, researching within our own individual communities and within this global community, holding what we learn as our commitment to create all of the change that we know is necessary, courageous and determined that we end all forms of this violence to live freely and with respect together.