Regional Women’s Committee Meeting and Standing Committee Meeting 2007

February 18-24, 2007
Hong Kong

Six young women from the Regional Women’s Committee (RWC) met on 18-20 February to evaluate, strategise, envision and implement the Regional Women’s Programme (RWP) for the next couple of years. After 2 full days of brainstorming, the RWC envisioned that the RWP needs to:

• aim to create a space where human relationships are nurtured.
• aim to develop each other’s spiritual formation in a spirit of sisterhood.
• empower women to recognize their rights and wisdom to interpret and do theology.
• aim to create a platform to respect the diversity of sexuality.
• continue the formation and development of women leaders in SCM.
• conscientise women and men about power relations in SCMs, church, WSCF and society.

The RWC also recommends that:

• To include discussions about power relations in all regional programmes (for example in the Women’s and Men’s caucuses in regional programmes such as SET, SELF, ASYG, HRSP).
• At the Regional Committee Meeting (RCM), each National Representative present should report on the women’s programme or the status of women’s activities in their country SCM in the National Report.
• Formation of a Women’s Network which includes former RWP participants, women senior friends, resource persons who are keen to be connected to the RWP.
• If a National Movement wants to nominate its woman SCMer to the RWC, they should send their RWC candidate to the RCM so that there is an opportunity for RWC candidates to meet and begin strategizing. This also ensures equal gender representation in the RCM.
• In the event that there is no Women’s Pre-Assembly in the GA, the RWC and RWP need to express their concern and ensure the possibility of a Women’s Assembly.

Standing Committee Members

The Standing Committee (SC) Meeting was held immediately after the RWC Meeting on 21-24 February. The SC envisioned the direction for WSCF AP in the next few years. It believes that WSCF AP needs to:

• Engage in biblical/theological reflection to strengthen the distinctive theologies that SCM is expressing.
• Encourage the movement character in the SCM spirit by supporting national movements to relate to senior friends better and to devise concrete ways to get support from them.
• Explore the Global community by developing resources from participants who attended the global programmes.
• Secure viability and refocus on the Senior Friends Support Group and the need to strategise for ways to ensure property security for regional staff.
• Work on women and gender and to focus on power relations in programmes and other related areas.
• Act boldly for fullness of life that calls for more effort in making more proactive position and stand.
• Enhance visibility of WSCF by establishing new relationships and maximising the usefulness of the website, additionally, enhancing the CCA joint programmes.
• Leadership formation that focuses on SET/SELF programmes, Bossey partnerships and developing a manual or SCM Handbook on leadership skills and movement building.

There is a heavy line-up of programmes in 2007 to meet the visions that the SC sets for WSCF AP, and it includes:

1. School for Ecumenical Leadership Formation (SELF) Programme – 2007 SELF will be a joint programme with CCA. As SELF is a leadership training programme for second-line leaders in the movements, the participants are required to possess understanding on pertinent issues that will be covered in the SELF modules such as ecumenism, globalization, feminism, environment, human rights and Christian theology. SELF will take place in the first week of September in the proposed venue of Sri Lanka.
   
   
2. General Secretary/National Coordinators’ Meeting (GS/NC) – The SC decided and recommended that the next GS/NC Meeting will take place in Bangkok on the first week of 2007 December.
   
   
3. Human Rights Programme – The HRSP in 2007 would be a Human Rights Defenders workshop which is scheduled to take place in July 2007 in the Philippines. It will be held in conjunction with the International Solidarity Mission (ISM) which is scheduled a week before the HR workshop. The ISM is a factfinding mission comprising of several key organisations that work on the HR issue.
   
   
4. Human Rights Internship Programme – This year’s HRIP will focus on the theme MIGRATION to coincide with the overall programme theme of WSCF. This intern will learn about the migration issues from the sending and receiving point of view and aiding the host organisation in its work.
   
   
5. Human Rights Coordinator – As there is only one application for the position of the Human Rights Coordinator, the SC decided to extend the application till the end of March 2007.
   
   
6. Regional Women’s Programme (RWP) – There will be Women Doing Theology on the theme of Sexuality in November 2007, and 2 RWP-SCM Joint Women’s Programme.