–Kvinna till Kvinna Holds 9th Women’s Consultative Conference in Nimba County
By Jerromie S. Walters
On Thursday, June 13, 2024, Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation, a Swedish-based international organization that operates in Liberia, jointly with its partners kick-started the 9th Women’s Movement Building Consultative Conference in Ganta, Nimba County.
The conference is being held under the theme: “Bridging the gap: Fostering Women’s Solidarity for Peace Building and Inclusion.” It conglomerated women (Rural and urban) from across Liberia, with an apt and shared goal to unite women to identify barriers to fostering solidarity amongst women, build a stronger women’s movement, and address critical challenges of intersectionality, solidarity, and movement building to advance gender equality and equity. The conference ends today, June 14, 2024
Intrinsically, day one (Opening) of the 9th Women’s Movement Building Consultative Conference entertained panel discussions on Enhancing Women’s Movement Building & Solidarity and Building Solidarity of Purpose to Influence National Development Priorities: Opportunities for Change. Also on today, day two which also marks the climax, panel discussions will be held on Advancing Women’s Access, control, and Ownership of Land (Women’s Access, control, and Ownership of Land), and Advancing Women’s Economic Empowerment, as well as presentations on An Introduction to Climate Justice, Green Energy, and Green Cities and Experience sharing on climate justice and change climateintervention amongst women of all classes.
In the overview, Aisha Lai, Country Director, Kvinna till Kvinna said the conference also endeavored to gather and find remedies to women’s concerns, needs, and priorities. “Today, we are gathered here to discuss what brings us together. Our 11 partner organizations, which are women-led civil society organizations, have initiated this idea. Following the elections, we identified challenges that women faced and felt the need to address them. Despite the successful democratic elections, some issues affected women, prompting us to organize this event. The theme we came up with is “bridging the gap and fostering women’s solidarity for peace and inclusion.”
She added, “We aim to share our concerns and connect with leaders to address our issues.” By looking beyond our differences, we can harness our collective strength and realize the power we pull together in the song we say side by side. If we work together, it is only through this unity that we can drive meaningful change for Liberia.”
Madam Lai holds the belief that with oneness, women can achieve their plights.
“When we unite our voices to address critical issues, we become an unstoppable force that those in positions of power and all of us in this room have some level of power, but those at the highest level cannot ignore us. So, together, we must demand our rights to create a better future for all.
More to her thought, Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation, and her partners hold the opinion that women’s participation in decision-making is fundamental to increasing their power and contributing to democratic and peaceful progress.
Chief Mary Larteh, delivering the Keynote address emphasized the strength of women’s unity and their significance in society. Chief Mary Larteh rallied women to speak out on their issues and take on leadership.
She embraced the need for respect for one another and to make themselves important. She encouraged the women to observe the rule of law, and the rights of others to keep the peace. “Speak out, your voice will be heard, your value will be known in the community.” She encouraged the women to know their value and treat each other fairly. “Teach me how to fish.” be one another keeper. We should be strong enough to protest one another. Don’t pick and choose. Don’t drop them by the wayside.”
Chief Mary Larteh frowned on vulnerable young women, and teenage pregnancy and frowned on women for not nurturing younger women. “Are we calling them to talk to them about life? We are not.”
She encouraged rural and urban women’s collaboration to achieve women’s agenda.
“Because they are disabled, they are not your friend, because they can’t see they are not your friend.” She called for oneness among women. She believes there’s a lot ahead for women to achieve as such, they must unite and work together. “Let’s speak for one another,” she noted.
Meanwhile, Madam Esther Davis, the Executive Director of the Women NGOs Secretariat of Liberia-WONGOSOL, cried out the entity’s financial and operational challenges in fully addressing sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) issues in Liberia. WONGOSOL, the mother body of all women’s NGOs in the country, coordinates efforts to support women and children but faces limitations in funding and resources.
Madam Davis highlighted that funding received by WONGOSOL is often restricted to implementation due to its minimum quantity), with less support for administrative costs.
“We are there to coordinate the issues of the Women and children of Liberia but most often the funding that comes to us is mostly restricted to implementation. I’m talking about activity-based when it comes to administrative costs. The administrative cost is very minimal to run the secretariat
before I talk about responding to the needs of
our members. We don’t even have vehicles to move in the counties to respond to issues.”
“Just imagine we at the national level are
constrained what more about the organizations that are down there who are responding to issues in their communities?“She said at some point women in the communities use their personal resources to respond to SGBV issues,” she stressed.
The human rights defender said this hinders the secretariat’s ability to effectively respond to the needs of its members and address SGBV issues nationwide. According to Madam Davis, the lack of resources, including vehicles for fieldwork in the counties, further impedes their efforts in supporting communities and county coordinators when the need for responding to SGBV arises.
Madam Davis called on international partners and donors to consider the developmental needs of organizations like WONGOSOL and emphasized the importance of strengthening their capacity beyond just implementation. She commended partners like UN Women and Kvinna till Kvinn for their support but emphasized the need for a more comprehensive approach to addressing the constraints faced by women’s NGOs in Liberia.
Like several other entities, including UN Women, OHCHR, CARE, and Medica Liberia, among others, Actionaid Liberia’s Country Director Elizabeth G. Johnson – encouraged the need for women to support each other.
Kvinna till Kvinna
The Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation collaborated with her partner organizations, RFSU, Action Aid, Forum CIV, Medica Liberia, Plan International, UN Women, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and CARE to implement the conference.
At the beginning of 2015, Kvinna till Kvinna in collaboration with the Office of Gender Advisor of UNMIL at the time, saw the need to begin a process that would bring the women of Liberia together after confirming the issues surrounding why women are disconnected to help break all barriers to strategize ways of uniting women in
‘Sisterhood’.
The first “Consultative Meeting-United Women in Liberia” was held in April 2015, followed by subsequent consultative meetings where women came together to discuss relevant issues confronting the women’s movement in Liberia Since then, there have been 8 (eight) Consultative meetings held with various themes such as: “How to unite women in Liberia’, “Values and Principles”, “Cultural Sensitivity as an Approach/ Method to Unite Women in Liberia’, “Unity of Women in Liberia: Roles and Cultural Considerations”, “Integrity-linked to the unity of women, and “Integrity, Culture, and Diversity Towards Strengthening Unity”, to name a few.
KTK anticipates that this year’s women’s movement-building conference will enable the women of Liberia to take collective action to engage more extensively at local and national levels to create a stronger women’s movement in Liberia that can address the many challenges faced by women, break down barriers and strategize ways of uniting in ‘Sisterhood’ to promote solidarity and advocate for increasing women’s participation movement building, promoting women in leadership, promoting gender equality while also addressing Gender Based Violence (GBV), and other forms of discrimination against women, including as well as other issues affecting women in Liberia which together will advance peacebuilding processes, amongst others.
