The meeting began with the self introduction of the participants at 3pm. There were 14 women belonging to the different Christian denominations. Sr. Julie welcomed the participants for the meeting and requested Rev. Chitralekha to begin with a Prayer.
Thereafter Rev. Chitralekha gave a brief reflection on the lives of women based on scripture and the present scenario of women’s status in the Churches. She said there are many prophetic women in the Bible both Old Testament and New Testament whose lives are examples of courage but are very rarely spoken in our Churches. She shared very concrete examples from her own life as well, which inspired the group.
Sr. Julie explained the theme of the Day, ‘International campaign for Elimination of violence against women’ which begins on 25th November and ends on 10th December, the Human Rights Day. She narrated the background of this campaign where on 25 November 1960, three sisters namely, Patria Mercedes Mirabal, María Argentina Minerva Mirabal and Antonia María Teresa Mirabal, were assassinated in the Dominican Republic because they fought hard to end Trujillo's dictatorship. On 17th December 1999, the date received its official United Nations (UN) resolution and November 25 was designated as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women by the UN General Assembly. The 16 days of activism against Gender-Based Violence aims to raise public awareness and mobilize people everywhere to bring about change and invites us to “Orange the world,” using the orange colour to symbolize a brighter future for women without violence.
Sr. Reena introduced ICWM (Indian Christian Women’s Movement) which began in January 2014 at a national conference at Bangalore. She explained the purpose of the movement and the strategies that were planned by the movement. She said, it is a platform for the women belonging to different denominations to come together to give voice to the issues of women within the Church as well as in the society invited all to join the movement.
Thereafter we had an open discussion on how we should take the movement ahead? Everyone shared that we need to come out with an activity in order to make our presence felt in Pune. The suggestions were to celebrate the International women’s day with a specific theme in a creative manner. The activity could be a street play, puppet show, Bale (dance drama) or any other activity, which would depict the theme rather than having usual talk or seminar for women. The life story of Pandit Ramabhai could be made known, was one of the suggestions too. Some suggested we could go around with our particular activity to the malls, public places etc, like the flash mob. Need to explore the possibilities by all and communicate.
The group also discussed to create a whatsapp group where communication is easily possible, and the group will be used only to send formal information.
The next meeting will be held on 16th January 2016 at 3pm in Streevani office. The agenda for the meeting will be: - International women’s day celebration
The meeting ended with an action song
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