WRC joins the Million Women Rise march

The drums, the whistles, the chanting, the sea of red banners... Women marching down the centre of Oxford Street on a busy Saturday afternoon to mark International Women's Day... Bemused (and sometimes supportive) shoppers and workers looking on - including a standing ovation from the Toni & Guy hairdressers... Women's organisations coming together in solidarity from across the country... Together we can end male violence against women...

The sun shone on this year's Million Women Rise march and the atmosphere reflected that - friendly, together, positive - despite the serious messages and placards. There was a real sense of reclaiming space from the shoppers, mannequins and advertising slogans as we marched through Oxford Street and Regent Street.

The atmosphere became more sombre at the rally following the march, where people gathered to listen to inspiring and moving speakers. Some told incredibly moving tales of survival and recovery, others read messages of solidarity from across the world, still others recounted the horrific violations of women taking place in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sri Lanka.

Anna from Object spoke about their actions to combat the increasing objectification of women, a speaker from the Women's Institute spoke about domestic violence and the fact that rural women often bear the brunt of the postcode lottery in violence services, and Ruth Bashall spoke about the abuses perpetrated against disabled women worldwide and the solidarity and strength they provide to each other. All the speeches were translated by the indefatigable sign language interpreter.

For a great sense of the march, see this fantastic video by warriorgrrl. See our pictures here and some other fantastic pictures by Jess McCabe here.

One woman. One body. One song. One love.

Happy International Women's Day (or Weekend)!

It's that time of year again, when (some) of the world's attention turns to women. There are loads of actions, events and celebrations going on. Here are just a few things you can do:

* MARCH! Million Women Rise - thousands of women will march through central London tomorrow in an act of solidarity and protest against male violence against women.

* CELEBRATE! Take some time to think about the women who have inspired and encouraged you in your life. When you've done that, why not let them know? Give them a call, bake them a cake, write it on your blog or Facebook page, shout it from the rooftops - whatever will make them feel valued. You could even make a donation in her honour to your favourite women's organisation - Rosa (the UK women's fund) lets you dedicate a donation to a special woman in your life by giving her a special rose in Rosa's online garden.

* CAMPAIGN! Lobby your local council for better provision for women who have experienced violence. Go to www.mapofgaps.org and use the template email there.

At 1.10pm today, hundreds of people changed their Facebook statuses and twittered messages about violence against women in Britain, after AmnestyUK sent out a call to action. You can see the Twitter messages here.

A brief guide to Twitter for women's organisations

There’s been a lot of noise in the media about Twitter recently and you could get the impression that it’s just for self-promoting celebrities. But what is less reported is how useful it can be for charities and campaigns. WRC has been using Twitter since October 2008 and we (well, I) love it and think it could be a great tool for other women’s organisations.

From a very personal perspective, I like Twitter because people only get your updates if they’re actually interested in hearing from you. If they don’t find you interesting, they won’t follow you (or not for long). You can send out quick notices, let people know about interesting news, events or comments – all without cluttering up people’s inboxes. And you make contact with (and build relationships with) people you didn’t even know existed. It breaks down institutional barriers and opens up your organisation to supporters, potential supporters, peers and even policymakers.

What else can you do?

• ask your network for help
• if you’re lucky, they’ll ask their networks to help you too
• promote campaign actions or other work
  
• get a dog a new home (or whatever your core activity is)
• get instant feedback
• engage with MPs, councillors etc
• learn from your peers
• add quick updates to your website or blog (you should see our twitter updates on this blog)
• even 'silly' Twitter actions can have a big impact - see Amnesty's snowmen for human rights!
  

How to get started
Have a look at this ‘Twitter in plain English’ video (although it mostly explains Twitter’s benefits to individuals rather than organisations) and then this presentation. Then sign up to Twitter and find some people to follow (i.e. receive their updates). One way is to follow me, then see who I follow and if you’re interested in them, follow them too. There’s a list of charities on Twitter here, or try some US women’s organisations to see what they’re doing.

One last thing... I asked my 'followers' if they had any tips for women's organisations new to Twitter and here are some I received...

• have a clear purpose or theme
• talk to people (be a real human being)
• be a good citizen

There’s so much more to say, but I hope this gives you a taste. As Christine Burns pointed out to me, Twitter encourages brevity, but if you want to know more, tweet me!

Seizing the opportunities of CEDAW!

In July 2008, the UK Government was disgraced when re-examined by the CEDAW Committee and were found to be wanting in their commitment to women’s rights. The UN said the UK Government has not kept up with their part of the bargain after signing up to the CEDAW Convention in 1981.

The Committee made 84 recommendations to the UK Government, including providing increased and sustainable funding to women’s organisations, raising public awareness about the Convention and upholding the Gender Equality Duty in terms of women only services. This was great news for the women’s voluntary and community sector and these recommendations can, and should, be used by women’s organisations to support arguments about the value of their services. CEDAW is a crucial tool that women’s organisations can use to lobby for funding, cooperation and new legislation to further the cause of women’s equality.

The next time the UK will be officially examined will be in Geneva in 2011 and we hope that there will be a full contingent of women’s organisations present and involved in the process to make sure that their voices and needs are listened to and acted on by the Committee and the UK government.

In order to prepare for 2011 we want to get the message out to women’s organisations across the UK – women need to be aware of, and be able to use, CEDAW in their core work and to strengthen their organisations, especially at a time when the women’s sector is so under threat.

2009 is the 30th anniversary of CEDAW so WRC have organised an event – Seizing the opportunities of CEDAW – on 24 March and are encouraging women’s organisations to come to learn more about the international instruments that are there to help them and to be able to hold the government to account. We also hope to create a sector-wide strategy for 2011 and to involve as many women as possible in this.

If you would like to find out more or get involved please contact us kara@wrc.org.uk and join our e-news, Facebook group or Twitter to keep updated.

Hackney funding seminar

Earlier today, the development team (and one policy team member!) found themselves in Hackney for the second in a series of local funding seminars which form part of WRC’s Building Futures project. The audience consisted of women from a number of organisations, from Hackney and the surrounding boroughs, who were keen to find out about the various options for sustainable funding.

The first speaker was Eve Oldham, commissioner for Older People’s Services in Hackney, who explained how the commissioning process can work for the voluntary sector and gave a step-by-step guide to the process, from invitation to tender through the to the awarding of the contract. Next was Pippa Judd, Counselling Services Manager at the Threshold project in Brighton. Pippa gave an insight into the challenges of partnership working, from her experience of having to merge with a larger, generic organisation due to loss of funding.

After a quick tea break, we heard from Em Ekong, director of Urban Inclusion, who talked about social enterprise and how it can work for the women’s sector. Em emphasised the importance of thinking creatively when it comes to thinking of possible income generation ideas and that while commercialisation is not appropriate for all organisations, it certainly is something which is worth considering. Finally, WRC’s Supriya Horn gave a short introduction to the world of fundraising from individuals and emphasised that this is a source of funding which is currently underused by the women’s sector. The formal presentations were followed by informal roundtable sessions with the speakers, where the women attending got to ask their own questions and network with one another.

All in all it was a very successful and inspiring morning, which one delegate described as “brilliant and loaded with info!”. Look out for details of our next funding seminar in Tower Hamlets on Friday 13th March!

Stronger Together in the South West

This week WRC Policy Team members travelled south to hold an event near Taunton with the South West Foundation looking at how women’s organisations in this area can better influence their local agenda and get their voices heard. It was a really great opportunity for women from lots of different kinds of organisations to meet and talk about the issues that they face locally and discuss what they can do about it! The event was part of WRC’s Stronger Together project and highlighted the need for women’s groups to work together and support each other when faced with gender discrimination at a local level. Networks like Equality South West’s gender network are already starting to do this.

Women’s Action Network Dorset spoke about their work supporting isolated women through social events and projects, and SEEDS Devon were keen to know about how they could challenge funding decisions and get more involved in local government.

The one thing that really struck me was the huge geographical areas that services have to cover in rural areas like the South West. The differences between the extent of services in the towns and countryside were obvious, however, the experiences of lack of recognition were the same.

We had fun creating our ideal visions of the future which were very colourful and optimistic – let’s hope we can get closer to this through solidarity and challenging decisions that reflect negatively on women!

A forum for change?

As part on WRC’s ongoing interest in the potential of social media (this very blog being a perfect example), I went to the IT Innovation in the Community event, organised by Ealing CVS and DC10. Case studies were used to show how people could make use of technology to engage with local communities. Digital inclusion is vitally important, with ICT being identified as the third skill for life, along with literacy and numeracy. But 75% of socially excluded adults do not use the internet, so we have to be very careful about balancing the opportunities on offer with the danger of excluding the most vulnerable groups.

One workshop showcased Ealing Community Network (ECN), which is piloting online consultation forums to access marginalised groups, by enabling strategic partners to consult with groups on service delivery. There are two forums: one for disabled people and one for Muslim women. The forum for disabled people to consult with Ealing Police has 12 members and is very successful. The Muslim women’s forum (for Ealing Hospital Trust to ask questions about service in both the accident and emergency department and the maternity unit) has 8 members, but it was clear from the outset that the level of support needed to access the forum was high, mainly due to the varying levels of English and IT skills amongst the women. This meant that activity levels were relatively low.

This was a small, but valuable, pilot project and ECN will be following up with a second round of discussions in the new year. It does, though, pose questions about how to reach marginalised groups. It can be a success, as shown by the disabled people’s forum, but the varying levels ‘life skills’ in the Muslim women’s community meant that not as many potential beneficiaries were reached. Nor were their voices heard.

Should the VCS be shifting focus to these kind of initiatives before making sure that basic IT skills are available in the communities we are trying to benefit? This a good question, but not one which should hold us back. This kind of project means that women are being reached who would otherwise not have had their voice heard. While this is not the only way to consult groups, it seems that any responses gathered are valuable. This kind of tool should be used as a way of complementing other methods for consultation and information sharing. The potential in these tools is an opportunity too good to miss!