WRI Women on the Move

Bienvenue, Dominique!

Dominique Saillard is the new woman on staff at WRI's London office, and the official liaison with the WRI Women's Working Group. She works three days a week at the office, and you can write or speak to her in French, Spanish, German or English. Dominique was born in France and educated as a professional translator; she lived in the US for awhile, where she was active in peace and environmental groups. She is deeply committed to women's empowerment. A very warm welcome from all of us, Dominique.

Fáilte, Oillan!

Congratulations to Veronica Kelly, former WRI staffer and now WRI Women's Working Group member, and partner Serge Vanden Berg, on the birth of WRI's youngest member: Oillan Vanden Berg! Oillan is a healthy baby boy and Veronica and Serge's first child. Anyone want to bet that Oillan will grow up to be a conscientious objector?

In Thailand

Many of you will remember Niramon Prudtatorn, former director of Friends of Women (FOW), one of the Thai co-sponsors of the 4^th WRI Women's Conference in Bangkok. Niramon fulfilled a dream she had long had shortly after the conference, and left her job to travel extensively in Thailand. She helped to organize this year's International Network of Engaged Buddhists, highlighting the need for women's equality....Khunying Kanita, the director of the WE-TRAIN facility, where the WRI 4^th Women's Conference was held, broke new ground for Thai women when she opened WE-TRAIN as a refuge for women fleeing violence. Last year, at an international conference of Buddhist women, Khunying Kanita took the vows of a Buddhist nun. Helping with the ceremony was Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, one of the speakers at the Conference in Bangkok.

In Taiwan

Yvonne Lin Mei-Jung continues her work as coordinator of the Taiwan Grassroots Women's Working Centre. Founded in 1988, the Centre helps women workers reform male-dominated unions; organize their own women-led unions and fight against unfair labor practices. The Centre publishes Asian Women Worker (in Chinese) and Female Workers in Taiwan (in English): Taiwan Grassroots Women's Working Centre, 4/F, 208 Chienkang Road, Taipei 10577, Taiwan. Tel. & fax +886 2 762 1006.

Violence Against Women in Zimbabwe

Late January the Harare newspaper "The Daily Gazette" ran a feature story on "Violence Against Women--When will society lend a sympathetic ear?". The article, with a photograph of a women's rights march in the city, stated that 192 women in Zimbabwe died in one year as a result of being physically abused. The article quoted a counsellor from the Musasa Project, the public education, counselling and research project on violence against women, which participated in the WRI Women's conference in Bangkok. Musasa Project, P.O. Box A 712, Avondale, Harare, Zimbabwe. Tel. 794982/3.

REMEMBER: the WRI office has moved. You can now reach us at WRI, 5 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DX, UK. Tel. +44 71 278 4040; fax +44 71 278 0444. The e-mail address remains the same: info@wri-irg.org.

IFOR's new quarterly

25 March 1994

Dear Friend,

There are two letters in front of me, one from Sudan, the other from Ecuador. The church worker from Sudan was happy to learn about the Goss-Mayr's book The Gospel and the Struggle for Peace, while Serpaj, Latin America's peace and justice network, wanted to thank us for printing news of Father Pepe Gomez winning the Pfeffer Peace prize.

Both learned what they did by reading IFOR's new magazine, RI.

We're proud of our new magazine, which now appears six times per year rather than quarterly. We hope it will bring members of our Fellowship closer together and provide a forum for news about active nonviolence worldwide.

We're so happy with the new RI that we're sending you this complimentary copy of the first issue. We hope you'll be happy with it, too, and with our special offer: if you subscribe before May 15th, you will receive six issues, plus the new Occasional Papers series, at last year's low price.

Where else can you learn about what the IFOR branch in Uganda is doing? Or new resources in peace education? Or the address to write to express your support for a nuclear weapons free world?

There is a whole world of active nonviolence between the pages of RI. Come discover it with us and support IFOR's work at the same time.

Yours for a nonviolent world,

Shelley Anderson

Editor