“It came to me while picking beans, the secret of happiness.”
- Nurturing health and well-being
- Protection from harm
- Encouraging individual growth and development
- Desire to be together
- Generous sharing of resources
- Working together for a common goal
- Celebration of shared values
- Interdependence
- Sacrifice by one for the other
- Creation of beauty
—“Braiding Sweetgrass” Robin Wall Kimmerer
Although it seems like years have passed since we have talked about happiness, perhaps we can find the pathway once again. In a world filled with the cacophony of alarms, failures, excruciating wars, the threat of climate change, and the pandemic of COVID, we have little time to breathe together, speak together, even be together. However, we are finding our way to building a community online – zooming in a big way toward the future. Register your support for our members who worked to make this journey happen and REGISTER for the Congress today!
On weekdays, August 9-12 & 16-19 (5 pm PST), all of us will find the time to sit and learn together – “HOW TO’s” cultivate, plant, and nourish ideas bound up with solutions. Some involve branches working together, others come from Issue Committees (all contain members, of course).
The Congress Program Committee members dedicated months of work emailing and calling every branch, collecting information about what the branches were doing and interested in. The result was a wide range of interests and activism and collaborative efforts.
Monday, August 9, 5 PM PST
How To - Legislative Advocacy: Uniting for Effectiveness
Developing a unified WILPF grassroots effort for our branches to work together towards increasing our influence on national legislation. Several branches will be reporting on their work.
Tuesday, August 10, 5 PM PST
How To - Building Branches from the Inside & Out Initiative
Learn about WILPF US’s new initiative and the process of how it’s been implemented using the Asset-Based Community Development approach. Hear from fellow participating branch members on their journey within “Inside and Out.” The “Building Branches from the Inside Out’ works in concert with the WILPF US Membership Committee.
Wednesday, August 11, 5 PM PST
How To - Growing a Peace Camp
Hear from Growing a Peace Camp Founder Millee Livingston and current Coordinator Natalie Zapata on how to build a youth peace camp in your own community! Growing a Peace Camp promotes teaching children about nature and peace, conflict resolution, self-confidence, empathy, acceptance, teamwork, and respect for individuality and diversity.
Thursday, August 12 - 5 PM PST
How To - Housing & Homelessness: Hands On Caring and Sharing
Members of the Fresno branch and Peninsula/ Palo Alto branch talk about problems and solutions in building an effective infrastructure for caring and protecting people on the edge of society.
Monday, August 16, 5 PM PST
How to - Fashioning Change
Fundraising and Relationship Building: "Fashioning Change" takes a traditional "women's program" of a fashion show and turns it into a powerful analysis of social justice issues.
Produced by the Cape Cod branch based on an idea borrowed from the San Francisco branch and hope will others want to do the same.
Tuesday, August 17, 5 PM PST
How to - What Youth Need To Know Before Enlisting
Military Services and Enlisting: "What Youth Need To Know Before Enlisting" - Join veterans and activists from BeforeEnlisting.org , who work in schools to tell young about people about the realities of military service, as well as nonmilitary alternatives.
Wednesday, August 18, 5 PM PST
How to - Membership Development: One by One: Building Relationships
The Membership Development Committee: “ONE BY ONE: Building Relationships” – reaches out and collaborates with allied organizations and provides tools for individual relationship building. Members in over fifteen branches have participated this initiative and a panel of seasoned members and leaders in membership building skills will share their experiences.
Thursday, August 19, 5 PM PST
How to - Preserving Your WILPF Legacy - Record and Archive Branch Interviews
A member and archivist from Peninsula/Palo Alto Branch presents ways to record and archive the knowledge and wisdom of the members and their peace activism and policy-making.
The secret of happiness is not found in a Hallmark card or the sentimental use of kumbaya; rather hands-on work and sleeves rolled up, the ground is made fertile for social justice. To carry the metaphor further, it is YOUR TURN to give a helping hand and celebrate the harvest of good work for the common good. Bringing your best critical thinking, your insightful minds, and radical hearts to share with us will produce the energy and stamina we need in these troubled times.
“The moral covenant of reciprocity calls us to honor our responsibilities for all we have been given, for all that we have taken. It’s our turn now, long overdue.”
—“Braiding Sweetgrass” Robin Wall Kimmerer
