Feminist popular education

Last week JASS Mesoamerica and Sinergia No'j hosted over two dozen indigenous, rural women from all over Central America and Mexico for a communications training in Guatemala City. The training focused on the right to communication and involved discussions with representatives from women's media projects; site visits to local women-led media outlets, and; hands-on sessions on various topics. These included: developing communications strategy; creating campaigns, and the use of various tools such as blogs, video, press releases, and radio spots.

In the biggest crackdown on Filipino activists since the Marcos era, 43 community health workers, including two pregnant women, were detained while conducting a training seminar and reportedly tortured on suspicion of being Communist rebels. Relatives and colleagues accused the military of planting guns and ammunition at the training facility. Through a campaign to Free the 43!, JASS ally, the Center for Women’s Resources, is pressing for their release.

JASS Southern Africa continues to bridge divides and to foster feminist leadership and action to confront stigma and improve health and lives.

JASS’ Malawi Movement Building Initiative – Amayi Tadzuka! Women Awake! –launched in February 2009 with three workshops in Lilongwe, Mzuzu, and Blantyre. Then, at the end of 2009, a national workshop consolidated the transformative process with district-level leaders from February, together with their national-level coordinators.