On May 5, Field Organizer Ali Issa gave a brief presentation to about 50 people at the American Friends Service Committee Friend’s Center in Philadelphia entitled “Iraq’s Tahrir Square” about the pro-democracy movement there. Ali also got the chance to connect with delegates that had recently visited Afghanistan with Voices for Creative Nonviolence and strategize how to amplify the voices of Afghan-driven alternatives to U.S. military strategy there.
Also in May, Organizing Coordinator Kimber Heinz traveled to New Mexico, where she met with anti-uranium organizers with the Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment (MASE) from towns affected by the uranium industry. Some had had toxic waste dumped on their lands, which got into the water supply, and some had worked in the mines or mills. She spoke with them about their ideas for what should be done with the video and audio recordings that were created during last summer’s Think Outside the Bomb anti-nuclear youth encampment in Chimayo, NM. These recordings will soon go into an anti-uranium storytelling project created by WRL in collaboration with MASE and other groups.
From there, Kimber attended the GI Rights Network’s annual conference in Albuquerque, NM . WRL has teamed up in NYC with Iraq Veterans Against the War to revitalize and relaunch the NY node of the GI Rights Hotline. A group of counselors- in-training in NYC will be working with experienced counselors on the East Coast to take calls from military service members and veterans and linked them to the resources and support they need.
On May 13 and 14, Kimber teamed up with WRL New England Regional Office Staff Joanne Sheehan to organize and facilitate the pilot of WRL ’s training, “Beyond the Peace Vigil: Movement Building for Allies.” The training is geared toward white folks in the U.S. peace movement and folks who are involved in antimilitarist organizing who want to deepen their relationships with organizations and groups led by people of color and become stronger allies to the communities most affected by U.S. war and militarism. At Voluntown Peace Trust in Voluntown, CT, participants got to know each other and build their ally skills through two days of intensive activities and discussions informed by popular education tools and principles.
Popular Educators
Kimber and Joanne had prepared for this training at a weekend workshop for popular educators in March at the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, TN. The curriculum will be published on the WRL website in August. Kimber also presented a piece of this curriculum at the Allied Media Conference (AMC) in late June, in Detroit, MI during a curriculum fair organized by Ali along with other members of the Palestine Education Project. WIN editor C. Moen also attended the AMC to build with other media makers.
On May 31, Ali traveled to Chicago, where he participated in a joint strategy session with IVAW, Veterans for Peace, Military Families Speak Out, United for Peace and Justice, Civilian-Solider Alliance, and Citizen Soldier. Discussion of overall strategy and coordination among the groups was supplemented by thoughts about how reparations and protest movements from within occupied countries can relate to work focused on veterans’ immediate needs— like IVAW’s Operation Recovery, its campaign to stop the redeployment of traumatized troops. With a sizable and growing anti-occupation and pro-democracy movement in Iraq, there is no better time to put some of these ideas into practice. This session led to plans for an October 7 coalition that would tie in the many issues surrounding 10 years of the U.S.-led “war on terror.” Another concrete outcome of this meeting was that IVAW is infusing its outreach at Fort Hood in Texas, from which about 3,000 are being sent to Iraq this summer, with reports on Iraqis demanding that the occupation leave.
Finally, Ali spent some time in Pittsburgh in early June, collaborating with IVAW board member and videographer Joyce Wagner to produce a video interview of Iraq protest organizer and shoethrower’s brother Uday al-Zaidi. Ali also got a chance to meet with a member of the United Steel Workers strategic campaigns team, which has been consistently donating to an Iraqi Oil Union newspaper project in the south of Iraq.
Keep up with WRL organizing on the WRL Blog at warresisters.wordpress.com.
