Women as Peace Builders Part 2

The continuation of a recapped session facilitated by Elischia:

There is a multi-lingual publication online specifically related to women, war and peace (2002) from what is formerly known as UNIFEM, which is now known as UN Women.  I pulled out a particular chapter from the publication that I think is good to read, it’s light- only one page and it has first hand accounts from women in different countries talking about their ways of processing information and some of the challenges they faced.

Here is the link:http://www.unifem.org/attachments/products/221_chapter09.pdf

Take a look at the publication and let us know your impressions.

I also have another resource for you, this one is in English, it’s a discussion that involved 2 women peace builders, Leymah Gbowee from Liberia and Shoba Gautum from Nepal. This reading is about 20 pages, but it is great because it incorporates the questions that were asked of these women and detailed responses.

Here is the link to this talk:http://genderandsecurity.umb.edu/Leymah%20Gbowee%20and%20Shobha%20Gautam%203-8-06.pdf

WHAT WE CAN DO TO SUPPORT WOMEN PEACE BUILDERS

Let us talk a bit about how we can support women peace builders, because I think it is one thing to say women can be, should be and are peace builders and another to provide the path for them to really make impact through all levels of society and be valued at the same time.

Do you agree? Feel free to share your thoughts on that with us.

– I think we can support women peace builders by making sure peace building processes are clearly open to them.

– We can start to teach peace building in a way that helps men support women and the work that can be done with them. I think a lot of the drawback has to do with fear and stigma. Men may fear that the focus becomes too much on women and then they feel like their manhood is taken away. I wonder what would happen if masculinity was re-framed so that men could see the benefits of working with women instead of one or the other?

– We can support women peace builders with funding for their projects. That means grant makers should look for projects run by women as well as projects that incorporate women as equal partners in the peace building process as well as the leadership of the project lead.

– For nations, it is important to promote the work of women that have made significant impact so that men can see that women are valuable partners in moving the dial forward. I think it gets tricky with customs where men are the ones that are the mouthpiece for a nation, however, things change all the time and the goal should be to inspire change that is more fair for everyone.

– Another way to support women peace builders is to record their histories and publish them!

– We can connect groups of women and people that support women peace builders. This can be from social networks to even community meetings. Do what is best for your place and make an effort to reach out to others.

These are just a few examples, can you think of any others? We’d love to hear from you, so send us a tweet, share this talk on your Facebook timeline and join us next time as we will go into some challenges that women peace builders can face and explore some ways to overcome them.