Congo Rape Action Event - October 6th, 6 p.m. - To develop our action strategy for WILPF NY Metro's Project Congo.

The meeting will be held at the 1199 SEIU Union Hall, Bread and Roses Gallery, 310 W. 43rd St. (bet. 8th & 9th Aves.) Take the A, C, E, 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, B, D, F, V, N, Q, R, or W to 42nd Street. Come hear Bibiane Tshefu speak about the situation in Congo and see assorted clips from films about Congo, some of which are part of WILPF's NY Metro's Trudy Orris Film Series.

History

On the eve of World War I, in 1914, Jane Addams (who founded Chicago's Hull House) and Lillian D. Wald (who founded New York’s Henry Street Settlement and public-health nursing) joined attorney, journalist and equal-rights feminist Crystal Eastman and others to form an organization initially called the Woman’s Peace Party in New York. This was later renamed The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom was in 1915 during World War I, with Jane Addams as its first president, making WILPF’s NY Metro branch the first branch of WILPF. WILPF works to achieve through peaceful means world disarmament, full rights for women, racial and economic justice, an end to all forms of violence, and to establish those political, social, and psychological conditions which can assure peace, freedom, and justice for all.

WILPF works to create an environment of political, economic, social and psychological freedom for all members of the human community, so that true peace can be enjoyed by all.

On April 28, 1915, a unique group of women met in an International Congress in The Hague, Netherlands to protest against World War I, then raging in Europe, to suggest ways to end it and to prevent war in the future. The organizers of the Congress were prominent women in the International Suffrage Alliance, who saw the connection between their struggle for equal rights and the struggle for peace. WILPF's foremothers rejected the theory that war was inevitable and defied all obstacles to their plan to meet together in wartime. They assembled more than 1,000 women from warring and neutral nations to work out a plan to end WWI and lay the basis for a permanent peace. Out of this meeting the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom was born.

WILPF's first International President was Jane Addams, founder of Hull House in Chicago and the first U.S. woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. For more information about Jane Addams, visit the official site of the Nobel Foundation.

It was the wisdom of our founding foremothers in 1915 that peace is not rooted only in treaties between great powers or a turning away of weapons alone, but can only flourish when it is also planted in the soil of justice, freedom, non-violence, opportunity and equality for all. They understood, and WILPF still organizes in the understanding, that all the problems that lead countries to domestic and international violence are all connected and all need to be solved in order to achieve sustainable peace.

WILPF is Building the Beloved Community by seeking to understand and address racism and discrimination in our society. Discussion about these issues is crucial to finding a viable solution. Add your voice and reason to the conversation.

WILPF is Challenging Corporate Power through education beginning with a six-week course developed by WILPF, which is being held across the world. A course will be held this summer. Call the WILPF New York Metro office to enroll.

WILPF is Disarming The War Economy by linking the effect of the for-profit war machine on our day-to-day lives. With the Raging Grannies and through song, art and satire we work to bring the immoral cost of the Iraq occupation home.