Women Reaching Out Together
I was part of the Sustaining All Life team at the United Nations climate conference COP23 in Bonn, Germany, last November. Two other women and I deepened our relationships while organizing the women's forum.
Sustaining All Life held several forums and workshops on different topics. The last forum was “Women´s Voices in the Forefront of Climate Justice,” led by Alima Adams, from the United Kingdom, and Teresa Enrico, from the United States. The evening before it Alima led our team in discharging on internalized sexism and counseled all of us. This inspired us to continue discharging on the topic, which turned out to be [resulted in being] important. It was a reason why so many women attended the forum and why some decided to share their stories up front.
While recruiting women to the forum, we sometimes took a break to do a short mini-session. We discharged on internalized oppression—for example, on competing with other women. We also decided to recruit together. One of us would go up to a woman while being supported by the other two. We had great attention for the women we reached out to.
A lot of the women who came to the forum were recruited by us. We think it was because we stood for unity and for caring about each other as organizers. We modeled that we can back [support] each other as women. This was also re-emergent for us as organizers.
The forum was almost full and was much appreciated. The women who attended were happy to have a female space in which to share their stories about working for climate justice.
Stockholm, Sweden
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of women
(Present Time 191, April 2018)