On March 4, 2010 CAPI, the Advocates for Human Rights, and the Human Rights Program of Minnesota brought together 120 people for an event entitled “Cultural Dynamics: Women’s Voices.” Part of a series of happenings for International Women’s Day 2010, this luncheon was the inaugural event of Refugee and Immigrant Women for Change (RIWC), a coalition of seven agencies whose goal is to work across cultures to shift attitudes and behaviors about gender equity in refugee and immigrant communities. The agencies that comprise RIWC are CAPI, Sewa-Aifw, Lao Assistance Center, Centro, Inc., African Health Action Corporation, and the Liberian Women’s Initiative of Minnesota.
The keynote speaker was Leymah Gbowee, executive director of the Women Peace and Security Network Africa, based in
Accra,
Ghana. Leyhmah, an award-winning and internationally recognized community organizer dedicated to building peace, has won the Gruber Women’s Rights Prize and the Blue Ribbon Peace Award from
Harvard
University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. She is also the central character of the award-winning documentary “Pray the Devil Back to Hell”. In her compelling talk, Leymah emphasized that creating worldwide change for women starts in our own communities, with our own mothers, sisters, and daughters. “The global perception of justice,” Leymah reminded her audience, “is not the same as the local reality.” Our work towards justice and equality for women must be rooted in a solid understanding of the perceptions, attitudes and conditions of women and men in refugee and immigrant communities.
Lynn Moline, the Board Chair for CAPI, welcomed guests to the luncheon and introduced the executive directors of each of the seven agencies represented. Doris Parker, co-founder and executive director of Liberian Women’s Initiatives in
Minnesota, introduced the keynote speaker. Following the keynote address, Gloria Contreras Edin, CAPI board member and director of a law firm which provides immigration law services, facilitated an audience question and answer session with Leyhmah Gbowee. Finally, Bryan Thao Worra of the
Lao
Assistance
Center, also an internationally recognized writer and community activist, provided a poem as the close to a wonderful event.
The RIWC luncheon represented the beginning of a new initiative. As Lynn Moline said in her compelling talk, “We are calling on you and your organizations to join us in a powerful grass roots movement to change perceptions of and behaviors toward women. We believe that gender inequity is at the heart of pernicious problems like sex trafficking, teen pregnancy, domestic violence, and discrimination in schooling and health care. Together, we can strike at the root causes of social problems like these that tear at the very foundation of our communities.” As CAPI and the other agencies involved in RIWC move forward, that very challenge- of changing perceptions of and behaviors toward women- will focus our energies and passions, and will shape the future work and programs we undertake.
Special thanks to John Kotishack who captured the spirit of the event with the lens of his camera.