Short update from Women's Orgs in Haiti - thoughts for Wed 17th tel call

Hello all,

In preparation for tomorrow's conference call, let me first welcome our new members, and ask them to join us for the conference call tomorrow. If you did not get the inviation to join this call, please send me an email to my private email at: talktothefuture@gmail.com and I'll make sure you have one. The telephone call in number was posted here yesterday - look at the posting. Time: Noon Haiti/NY time; 9 am Pacific time.

I'd like to ask new members to introduce themselves and share a very short bio for us to know about them.

I'm also asking all members to send me short bios in the coming week so we can prepare a short document about our members that others can read when they join.

Uyy, pdate from Haiti:

I spoke to several Haitian women leaders today - in advance of tomorrow's call. They reiterate that they are so happy we are mobilizing and completely support our own energies in this.

They are meeting today for the second time to discuss the proposed Women's Summit idea and will let us know tonight if they are in agreement with going forward to propose and organize this.

I know privately that several are quite excited by this idea.

The women's orgs there are part of larger coalitions like CONAP who are meeting to decide their participation in the upcoming Donor's Forum, and their positions, etc. I asked them if they had any 'statement' with women's positions clearly laid out that we could use as a basis for a statement from Poto Mitan: Rebuilding Haiti group that would echo the needs of Haitian feminists regarding women and girls voices and concerns... but they don't yet have this statement or document. They do have a broader document they are developing and will share with me today, hopefully. I told them I will personally take charge of co-coordinating a statement for our group in liasion with them in order to prepare something for a PRE-Donor's meeting in Martinique that a women's delegation will attend, and that Rosemond Pierre-Louis of our group will attend. (Very happy about that Rose)

Rose informed us that Nancy Dorsinville, our longtime colleague who is a professor at Harvard, is also being some kind of coordinator for women's interests at the Martinique meeting, if I understood correctly.

If any of you have any 'statement's or thoughts dowin in writing to use as basis for a draft statement. PLEASE send this to me today. I will pull something together for us to look at for tomorrow's conf call.

2) Unifem: In previous calls, we discussed outreach to Unifem and Kathy Mangones, who represents Unifem in Haiti and is the key liasion to the UN groups for the grassroots Haitian women's networks like SOFA, Kay Fanm, etc. I spoke with her today briefly and will speak to her again later about:

a) her thoughts regarding a possible women's summit.. she is talking to Taina (Bien-Aime) of Equality Now, and a member of our group - tomorrow about this, as Taina's org hopes to be the main organizer of the summit and seeks Unifem as a key funder. I informed her about our group and our interest in having the summit happen IF the Haitian women are on board-- so far it seems the momentun is definitely heading in that direction. She was very happy to talk and also expressed happiness at hearing about our solidarity effort on this end.

Kathy will be in NY for the Donor's meeting. She does think it critical to talk immediately and to work quickly to be well prepared for the Donor's meeting, and to meet with other women there re a possible summit - if this is to happen. So I'll talk to her later today and give you an update tomorrow am.

3) A number of women health advocates have reached out to me who are seeking to do different initiatives but they fall into the umbrella of women's health, mental health (trauma) and GBV related activities, and they might yield an institutional exchange of women's health experts and trainers from US health institutions who could work with a Haitian initiative to establish more women's health services or help staff/train at clinics or women's centers in Haiti/. One of the docs wants to go to Haiti soon to do a 'needs assessment' visit and determine what has been done, by whom, and how best a feminist health initiative could be integrated into existing structures or complement initiatives. She is particularly interested in working with women's rights organizations that have outreach or health initatives in place or want them.

4) We need to know who will be or could be in NY for a meeting on either March 29 or 30 - just before the Donor's meeting. Please let me know HERE (put in Comments section) if you might be there.

5) Finally, I'm excited we're going to begin our activities soon in a more public, thus formal way. Julie will update us about the logo and website but we are talking and we will together have something ready by the Donor's meering that gives us a greater web presence and place for people to view our organization, while we continue using this PulseWire discussion board for our interactive communication.

6) Finally, we're setting up a call with Haitian women - soon- possibly next WED at 1:30 Eastern time - for an hour -- so please ADVANCE mark your calendars.

And if you have additional agenda items for tomorrow, please send them by tonight.

Thank you.

Anne-christine