Supporting initiatives in regions, restored call centre operation, new “Daughters of Eva” project (about fearless women of Belarus) and a detailed presentation of the Fem Group. Read on the main results of the last few days’ work and join!
Regions Support Group:
Regions Support Group ensured continued communication of the citizens of Belarus with the Coordination Council (CC) and provides support to the regional initiatives.
Our call centre and Hotline continue their operation. Our volunteers answer questions on the Council’s work and direct requests to other initiatives, should specific support be requested. Communication with all the existing independent trade unions is in place to solve the issues of industrial workers and institutional employees.
- Over 1,000 calls have been received within one month of operation.
- Legal advisers of the Regions Support Group prepare documents on request for the operation of the regional initiatives and regional trade union branches.
- Volunteers of the working group have created an Internet platform Trade Union Online. Anyone can apply for help through the platform when establishing an independent trade union at their enterprise or institution.
- Over 2,000 people submitted their applications to join the Expanded Coordination Council through the Regions Support Group.
- The Regions Support Group also maintains a volunteer database and selects volunteers for the CC technical support, for the Trade Union Online platform, etc.
Besides, the representatives of the Group took part in the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) Pan-European Regional Council (PERC) Executive Committee meeting. They told the PERC Executive Committee about the situation in Belarus, repressions and pressure on the members of the strike committees and on the strikers. The PERC Executive Committee is ready to help and support our fight for the rights and interests of the workers including the right of the Belarusian workers to strike as a basic right of the workers’ associations.
Working group on the formation of a civil society:
“We often hear that the Evalution happening in Belarus has a woman’s face. Who are there heroines, in all regards, who managed to inspire and lead millions of Belarusians?
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Maria Kalesnikava, Veronica Tsepkalo, Svetlana Aleksievich, Lilia Vlasova, Nina Baginskaya, Nadezhda Sayapina and others. We have created a project, Daughters of Eva, to gather tales and portraits of the women of Evalution: from those participating in the solidarity marches and standing linked in the front lines to the volunteers collecting data of the victims near the pre-trial detention centres.
Many are yet nameless. You can help people learn about them. Send us information about women and women’s initiatives worth attention. We promise we won’t give out the names of the heroines without their consent. You can merely tell about a project: be it women helping the victims of the police outrage or a resonance cultural action.
the project supports the heroines; makes them believe their efforts are not in vain. It also helps learn about important activities and join such.”
You can send information about the heroines in private messages or leave in comments.
Coordination Council Fem Group
A feminist working group (Fem Group) started its work within the Coordination Council. It emerged on the initiative of several civil activist members of the CC.
Members of the Group state: “We see and we know that women in Belarus today are the motion and consolidating power of the protest movement. Therefore, we have created a Fem Group within the CC so that our women’s movement wouldn’t become merely a page in the history of a heroic protest, but so that women could continue impacting all the transformation processes in New Belarus.
We are together to:
- Expand women’s presence in the Core Coordination Council and the Expanded Coordination Council
- Be of influence in decision-making within the CC
- Promote the CC’s activities as of the united representative body of the Belarusian society
- Continue our activities after the CC completes its work as a transitional body.”
Representatives of the Fem Group say that it is not only important for them to unite with the Belarusian women expressing their active civil position in various ways, but to also take responsibility for their voices to be heard, accounted for and represented.
- Within less than a month of the Group’s operation, its leaders have made two public statements: on September 8, regarding the detentions, searches and abductions of the Women’s March activists which happened earlier, and on September 12, in support of the Ee Prava (Her Rights) Centre for Promotion of Women’s Rights and of PandaDoc IT company which were accused on the national television of alleged financing of the Women’s Marches and protest actions in Belarus.
- Fem Group’s activities were announced in the meetings with the representatives of various institutions of the European Union.
- A Telegram channel will appear soon to publish statements and news of the CC Fem Group activities.
- If you would like to join the active women in this working group, please fill out a short questionnaire.
All organisational and information issues shall be directed to: [email protected]
The Group’s work will be in directions as follows:
- Collection and distribution of information about the current interests and needs of women in the situation of political crisis.
- Increasing the visibility of women’s political participation in the transformation of the Belarusian society.
- Documenting, making public and distribution of the information about the cases of state violence against women.
- Increasing visibility of the issue of gender-based state and prison violence against men.
- Integration of gender mainstreaming in all the transformational processes in Belarus.
- Elaboration of the ways/instruments for overcoming the crisis and accumulation of information about the possibilities for support.
