Thoughts on the Social Forum and what next

The First US Social Forum in Atlanta was an astonishing success! Organizers did an amazing job of bringing together the most diverse gathering of over 10,000 activists I have ever seen in my over 25 years of being an activist. Communities from across the nation, small and large, were represented. The common theme is we must come together and in doing so, we can create the world we want, a world of justice and peace. There were over 900 workshops, 2 plenary panels every night, and voices of the most marginalized being lifted up and honored and celebrated. The enthusiasm which each panel engendered was exciting and hopeful.WILPF can be proud that we were a part of it all. We weren't without glitches.... boxes of materials delivered late or not at all.... confusion about where our tables were to be.... Far distances between meeting spaces that were hard to get to... but all in all, WILPF workshops and the Women's Tribunal went off and went well. Most importantly, WILPF had over 30 members who spread out and attended workshops, met every morning to give feedback, and had a closing meeting to strategize about how to incorporate all we had learned, connections that were made, as a part of our future WILPF work in our local branches. Everyone agreed to write up their experiences ans next steps and send it to the national office. Staff will compile this and put out a report in the next branch mailing and put it on the web. As a part of the Social Forum, there were break out sessions by geographic regions. Several WILPF members went to these and are planning to be a part of the follow-up that each region plans.... We will keep you posted as these develop. For the Northeast Region, we were able to agree to a follow-up meeting in New York in September, with a goal of a joint action in January. WILPF will be represented on the planning group for these events. In the following days, we will put the audio taped sessions from the forum up on the website, and post more details.... (another glitch...our signal at our hotel was too weak and we could not upload pictures and audio files while we were there). We hope you will listen and enjoy all the pictures that we took... Another World IS possible and WILPF has much to contribute in building it. Jody Dodd, Staff, US Section Office

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