My experience at the International Women and Health Meeting
It was held in October 2015 in the Dominican Republic and was a gathering of women’s health and rights activists, advocates, researchers, organization heads and young people. Sarah Soysa, Youth Champion, ASAP and Coordinator of the Youth Advocacy Network Sri Lanka (YANSL) had the privilege of participating in this gathering of feminist movements across the globe.
She writes about her experience:
The objectives of the conference were:
- Deepening the analysis of the factors affecting the health of women worldwide through an inter-relational, intercultural and inter interdisciplinary approach to generate an agenda of proposals and advocacy strategies at all levels.
- Strengthen the health movement of feminist women, and articulating networks
- Ensure participation of women in all regions of the world, considering the diversity of segments of women and organizations working on the health agenda of women.
The discussions were so liberating than in many other conferences I have attended where they spoke boldly and openly about abortion, pleasure, SOGIE and many other controversial issues in a rights based approach. The young feminists came up with their own statement and set of recommendations which were respected and incorporated well. There were many panels talking about activism, religious fundamentalism, neo liberalism, economic, social and political autonomy, disability and pleasure, global analysis on justice and rights etc. I personally learnt a lot from the presentations. However, meaningful discussion contribution was difficult as mostly the conference was held in Spanish and we received simultaneous translation.
I spoke about the strategies in Asia for women’s health movements at the conference and you can watch my speech in this video. I spoke about Asia Safe Abortion Partnership and FRIDA Young feminist fund using their strategies of women’s health movement building.
I was also a part of the final discussions in planning the next conference as I actively participated in many discussions and dialogues as much as possible and also this was a great opportunity to strengthen our partnership with WGNRR and ARROW. I also got an opportunity of meeting and exchanging experience with feminists from many other countries specially the Latin American countries and their passion was simply amazing and motivating.
The last day was also exciting as we went on a protest around the city centre and in front of the president’s house requesting to change laws on abortion. This was a very refreshing experience and we also met the mother of a young woman who died as a result of the state not allowing to do an abortion when her life was in danger which was indeed a painful experience.
The solidarity among all feminists was felt strongly and I am very excited to meet all of them somewhere someday soon and learn more about their amazing work.
