GCAP eletter english 25 March 2008 - 20

 

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THE GCAP E-LETTER 2008

25th March 2008 - Edition #20

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The Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) is a growing alliance of trade unions, community groups, faith groups, women and youth organisations, NGOs and other campaigners working together across more than 100 national platforms. GCAP is calling for action from the world’s leaders to meet their promises to end poverty and inequality.
The white band is our symbol and expression of solidarity against poverty.

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Editorial

Dear Friends,

In this week’s e-letter we will update you on the first big mobilisation date of 2008; International Women’s Day. We will also pass on the latest from the Transition Committee and face-to-face meeting of our three co-chairs, which took place in Johannesburg last week.

International Women’s Day (IWD)
GCAP national coalitions made a great effort to launch our 2008 actions and highlight the importance of March 8th by raising their voices to call for gender equality to end poverty.

The Indian coalition Wada Na Todo Abhiyan celebrated IWD by releasing the “Women’s Charter Against Poverty” and brought together more than 10,000 women across eleven states. In the Philippines, the GCAP coalition participated in a civil society march to the Presidential Palace protesting against the Philippine President for crimes against women and the Filipino people. In Afghanistan GCAP members celebrated IWD with a joint event in Kabul attended by local organisations, representatives from the Ministry of Women Affairs and MPs. The aim was to highlight the situation faced by women in the country and give policy makers strong incentives to provide job opportunities, education facilities and women’s empowerment programs. In Georgia, the GCAP coalition presented results of a maternal and child health survey inviting representatives from the parliament as well as CSOs and media. There were also significant women’s demonstrations and events in the US, Peru, Argentina, Nicaragua, Azerbaijan, Singapore, Indonesia, the Dominican Republic and in Malawi.

In addition to these great national activities, the GCAP support team organised a press conference in Johannesburg to launch the 2008 mobilisation. Joining Co-chairs Kumi Naidoo and Ana Agostino on the panel were, Jody Collapen, Chair of the South African Human Rights Commission and Carrie Shelver from local women’s NGO, POWA.  They talked about the importance of working to keep the public and political spotlight on gender issues and emphasize women in the development debate.  Kumi also put forward plans to keep GCAP’s demands high on the global and national political agendas on key dates during 2008.

Some great mobilisation tools were developed to support IWD as well.  We have not yet identified how many GCAP IWD e-cards were sent to governments and MPs, but we do know that 600 printed cards were distributed at the “Commission on the Status of Women” event at the UN in New York where members of the Feminist Taskforce hosted a successful event for delegates on February 28th. The “Women’s Day Photo Clip”, uploaded on the Whiteband website and You Tube, was viewed over 2,000 times in the first few days and can be used throughout the year as a motivating mobilisation tool.

Updates from the Transition Committee
On the last IFT call, it was agreed that it’s time for the discussion on hosting and registration to come back to national coalitions for consultation and endorsement.  Therefore, in the next week your regional secretariat will be sending you information on the registration process for consultation, and there will also be an open call for expressions of interest to host the global secretariat to everyone based in the global South.  Please give this your attention.

Co-chairs Meeting
GCAP co-chairs Ana Agostino, Sylvia Borren and Kumi Naidoo met in Johannesburg last week. The main topics on their agenda were funding issues, organisational development and strategic plans for the future, they also discussed collaboration strategies and partnership matters.

And finally, if there is one thing you read this week and comment on, please visit the Christian Science Monitor’s series of articles on poverty. It is both a stimulating read and a great space to air your comments as a GCAP member, so get blogging: thelastbillion.blogspot.com

Regards,

Irfan Mufti, GCAP Campaign Manager & the IFT Support Team

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Regional updates

In the African Region, GCAP will have a regional meeting from March 26th to 28th in Dakar, Senegal.
In Asia, the regional GCAP face to face meeting will take place in Bangkok, Thailand from April 19th to 22nd
GCAP LAC will have their regional meeting in mid May.

Mobilisation

Many thanks to the great work of the Feminist Task Force and dedicated gender activists for the mobilisation on International Women’s Day (outlined above) which saw GCAP-organised activities taking place in 13 countries in most regions of the world.

The Mobilisation Task Force is undertaking a restructure and will shortly be calling on nominations from national coalitions to join. Please contact sarah.gregory@civicus.org if you are interested in joining.

Media Communications

The OECD’s DAC figures will be issued at the beginning of April and GCAP will be working with partners to issue a statement in response.

GCAP’s partnership with the Every Human Has Rights campaign will receive its first publicity opportunity in mid April when GCAP personalities will be featured at the launch of a Google Earth layer profiling human rights defenders from around the world. Thanks to the people in GCAP who fed in the photos and profiles of their most inspiring campaigners. After the launch, we will be sending you the forms and inviting new contributions from around the world.

Media planning for this year’s G8 summit is underway now and a sub group of the G8 working group will be meeting to discuss this. Contact Ciara (GCAPmedia@ciaraosullivan.com) if you would like to be involved in this group.

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The GCAP IFT Support Team

Irfan Mufti, Campaign Manager
Ciara O’Sullivan, Media and Communication Coordinator (E-letter editor)
Sarah Gregory, Outreach and Mobilization Coordinator
Henri Valot, Web and New Media Coordinator
Caitlin Blaser, Campaign Officer
Frida Hjalmarsson, Intern
Christal Du Pont, Admin

GCAP IFT support team
C/O CIVICUS
PO Box 933, Southdale 2135
Johannesburg – South-Africa
Email: info@whiteband.org
Tel: + 27 11 833 59 59 Fax: + 27 11 833 97 79