Conference Unity Statement
** VISIONS FOR A NEW WORLD **
Philippine Normal University 8-10 September 2009
Manila, The Philippines
We, the participants of the Asia Pacific Women’s Conference on Peace and Security, hereby declare our commitment towards the following VISIONS FOR A NEW WORLD. For us, these visions are not merely wishes or dreams outside the reality of our day-to-day struggle, but what we are actually practicing in our daily lives. We believe that it is absolutely possible to realize these visions through the agency of both the individual and the collective to transform words into worlds.
BUILDING A HOUSE OF TRASH WITH METRO MANILA URBAN POOR WOMEN
Cheryl Adam, Australian Grandmother Artist:
BUILDING A HOUSE OF TRASH WITH METRO MANILA URBAN POOR WOMEN
Cheryl Adam performs for Filipino women in her dress made out of recycled plastic.
Cheryl Adam, Australian grandmother artist, works with trash and
discarded objects, making them into something useful like wearable costumes, handbags and shoes. She makes tapestries from plastic and soft sculptures which have won awards and have been exhibited in art galleries in Australia.
Cheryl Adam is now in Manila to perform and exhibit at the Asia Pacific Women’s Conference on Peace and Security that shall be held at the Philippine Normal University on Sept. 8-10, 2009.
She is giving “Art and Craft from Trash” workshops to urban poor women members of Zone One Tondo Organization (ZOTO) this September 3-4. Among the participants to the workshop are former “bat people”, who used to live under bridges in Dagatdagatan due to their extreme poverty.
Read more: BUILDING A HOUSE OF TRASH WITH METRO MANILA URBAN POOR WOMEN
REMEMBERING 1945
1945.
On a lovely morning
At 8:15, August 6, the glare of a thousand suns
Flashed over Hiroshima.
11:02 am, August 9, a mushroom cloud rained
death over Nagasaki.
See the images,
Hear the stories of the hibakusha[1]
It will sear your soul.
One will never forget
Think of melted coins, scorched stones,
Contorted steel, but worst,
See the shadows forever etched on walls,
Left by human beings “burned like fallen leaves”[2]
The world should never forget
210,000 people killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki[3],
266,000 hibakusha bearing witness
to that day of shame.
Remember
27,000 nuclear warheads in the world today
The real terror
Oh what horror for all humanity !
By Merci Llarinas-Angeles
Peace Women Partners,Inc.
[1] The survivors of the atomic bombing. A HIBAKUSHA WILL BE ONE OF THE SPEAKERS IN THE CONFERENCE.
[2] From the story by Misao Nagoya, a hibakusha who wrote about her sister who was never found after the Hiroshima bombing.
[3] The number of people killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki within four months after the nuclear holocaust in 1945.
Promoting global peace
By Nora O. Gamolo
originally published in the Manila Times, Opinion Section, 5 February 2009
All over the world, civil society is agog over possibilities following a new administration in the United States, and changes in the political regimes of many other countries.
Never mind that the much-ballyhoed and recently concluded Davos Forum has not churned out any significant commitment for development or for the world’s marginalized, except for identifying caveats and a skillful pass-over of the usual motherhood statements and the required paychecks to see to their fruition.
Defined a thousand fold, civil society is that maverick catch-all social segment that is neither hard-core business nor government, but pivotal in crafting policy and implementing programs, largely due to strong local and international political pressure.