2009: That's a Wrap!

What a year for the world and for JASS! Like all of you – our allies and supporters – JASS faced some crazy challenges with important action in 2009, captured on this rocking 4-minute video: from the Wall Street crash to the coup in Honduras, from the legalization of abortion in Mexico City to a stoning law in Aceh, Indonesia, and attempts to criminalize homosexuality in Uganda. JASS closed 2009 by bringing together some of our leadership in Amsterdam to talk about POWER – MOVEMENTS – CHANGE. There, we paused long enough to register how much we’ve achieved: we reach the end of the year out of breath from the sprint, more influential in more places, and with a growing constituency of inspiring women making change from households to the UN. As our effort grows, your continued support and tax-deductible contributions enable us to reach further and go deeper so that women everywhere can use their power for a better world for all. We wish all of you a joyous holiday and peaceful new year.

~ Lisa VeneKlasen, ED + the JASS team

Beijing +15: Building Southeast Asian Women's Rights Agendas

The Asia-Pacific NGO Forum on Beijing +15 (AP-NGO), held in Manila, 22-24 October, took on a deeper significance in the context of devastating floods in the Philippines, with their impact in women in particular. A JASS SEA team attended the Forum to expand relationships with organizations working on women’s rights and to build common regional agendas. “Despite all claims that the gender gap in the [Philippines] is lessening, the realities experienced by grassroots women tell otherwise,” wrote JASS member Mikas Matsuzawa, a Filipina activist and blogger, reporting on the AP-NGO on the JASS blog. “In this modern age, the notion that a woman’s place is in the kitchen and the bedroom still lingers. And I have learned to recognize that there is indeed double oppression of women not only due to gender but also class.” Read more of Mikas’ insights and her reporting on the presentations.

Elections Alone Do Not Make a Democracy in Honduras

In an op-ed published online by the Christian Science Monitor, JASS ED, writing with Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams, called on the Obama Administration to stand up for women’s rights in Honduras. Nearly six months after the coup that toppled the country’s democratically-elected President, and despite the election of a new President on November 29, women and human rights defenders continue to suffer violence at the hands of Honduran and clandestine security forces. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, as well as feminists and other advocates have spoken out against these abuses. In November, JASS joined other feminist and women's rights organizations in sending Secretary of State Hillary Clinton an open letter urging her to address these violations, and accompanied prominent human rights advocates (including two Honduran Feminists in Resistance) during their visit to Washington, DC to meet with members of Congress and the State Department and testify before the IACHR.

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Strengthening Women's Movements in Southern Africa

JASS Kicks Off in Zambia

Women Crossing the Line in Malawi

JASS-Southern Africa convened a movement-building strategy meeting in Lusaka, Zambia, in mid-November, with 21 young women (and two men), all of them activists and leaders in HIV/AIDS, youth, and women’s reproductive rights. Taking off from JASS needs assessments over previous months, the workshop allowed an opportunity to share fresh perspectives on the Zambian political, social, and environmental fabric and on the challenges facing women’s mobilization efforts.

In the next step of JASS’ feminist movement-building initiative in Malawi, 14 women activists and community leaders living with HIV met once more for a national workshop. The gathering mapped out strategic action plans on priority areas including access to land and fertilizers, credit, and quality healthcare services. The process drew in national-level leadership on the last day, to ensure their support for the bold plans that the grassroots participants developed. Facilitator Hope Chigudu reflects: “JASS workshops, such as this one, embody the budding connections among women living with HIV and AIDS, who come from all over Malawi. They symbolize the beginnings of a whisper, a rustle, a flame that will build into a stronger movement of women living with HIV/AIDS, and a strengthened sisterhood.” Hope’s vivid dispatches from Malawi open a window into a uniquely holistic process, engaging women’s hearts, minds, bodies and spirits in political change work.

Bridging Divides in Southeast Asia

In partnership with the Center for Women’s Resources, JASS Southeast Asia held its first national-level movement building institute in the Philippines (November 10–13), bringing together women from different political camps, generations and agendas. Thirty women activists from around the country shared analysis and learning from their organizing and advocacy, and worked on a national women’s agenda for making change. Implementing the 2009 strategy and building on rich experience in Indonesia and Timor Leste, JASS SEA has held national-level gatherings in Cambodia and Malaysia too, with Thailand and Burma planned for 2010. Underlying these apparently seamless gatherings are many months of preparation, as JASS teams consult widely to ensure diversity of class/focus/location/ethnicity; negotiate long-standing tensions in certain countries; and mentor new leaders.

Give Me Back My Movement!

Leave it to Zimbabwean feminist Everjoice Win to proclaim what others fear to whisper. On the JASS blog, she writes, “My safe space called the women’s movement is going, or even gone. It’s been taken over by men. And I am scared and angry. To paraphrase them racists, let me say it one more time – I love men. Some of the best people I’ve had sex with are men. So there. I believe progressive, non-patriarchal, non-sexist men have a positive role to play in the struggle for women’s human rights. There are a few of them out there. But they are not yet in a majority, and a few good men do not a system make. Patriarchy in all its forms is still alive and doing quite well by my last diagnosis. The majority of men and boys continue to have access to all kinds of power, resources, and privileges, which they don’t hesitate to use to exert their control over women’s and girls’ lives and bodies." Read the blog and join the discussion rippling across the internet.

A New Treasurer Joins the Board

This year, Barbara Schriefer joins JASS as Board Treasurer. Since 2004, Barbara Schriefer has served as Chief Finance Officer for the Moriah Fund, a private family foundation. Prior to that, she worked at the National Breast Cancer Coalition in the US. Barbara holds a bachelor’s degree from Washington College and a master’s degree in Finance from American University in D.C. She volunteers at the Signature Theatre and is an avid traveler

JASS Welcomes a New Board Member

This year, Usu Mallya, Executive Director of Tanzania Gender Networking Program (TGNP), joins JASS as a board member this year. A long-time feminist activist and experienced facilitator, Usu has a particular strength in linking macro to micro issues, and vice versa, from a transformative feminist perspective, and in perceiving the implications of women's daily struggles for policy, advocacy, and movement building grounded in grassroots activism.

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