Follow the Women France

Invitation au week-end d’information et de préparation de l’équipe France

9 et 10 septembre 2006, St Michel de Frigolet

« Follow The Women », littéralement « Suivez les femmes » est née de la volonté d’une femme, Detta Reagan, une anglaise d’une cinquantaine d’années, de permettre à des femmes de toutes origines, de découvrir le Proche-Orient et être actrices de la paix.

L’idée est simple et transcende toutes les oppositions et antagonismes réducteurs : Utiliser le vélo, comme moyen de locomotion accessible à tous et respectueux de l’environnement, la surprise créée par une foule de femmes en marche ( !) pour appeler à la paix et promouvoir une participation active des femmes à la résolution des conflits. C’est une forme de résistance simple et non-violente que la société civile peut imposer aux échecs des négociations politiques.

L’association Femmes Sports Cultures Méditerranée a soutenu une équipe française lors de l’édition du tour en Avril 2004 et Septembre 2005. La prochaine édition du tour à vélo est prévue pour Avril 2007.

Si aucune condition physique, en terme d’âge, de connaissance linguistique ou historique n’est nécessaire pour participer activement à l’expérience Follow The Women, il convient néanmoins de préparer ensemble la participation d’une équipe française et rendre l’expérience la plus riche possible. Il n’y a pas de conditions de genre pour soutenir Follow the Women, même si le circuit est réservé à des cyclistes féminines.

La participation à cette rencontre n’engage en rien votre participation au tour d’Avril 2007 mais à pour but de vous donnez un maximum d’éléments pour mieux connaître le projet. De même, si vous n’êtes pas disponible pour cette rencontre mais souhaitez participer ou apporter votre soutien, dites-le-nous afin de vous faire parvenir les informations nécessaires.

Objectif de cette rencontre :

-          Echanger sur les expériences de 2004 et 2005

-          Répondre aux questions que pose la participation au projet (aspect matériel, politique…)

-          Constituer et soutenir l’équipe française à Follow the Women 2007

-          Définir la préparation nécessaire de l’équipe

-          Définir les actions à entreprendre avant Avril 2007 (sponsors, communication etc.)

Programme du week-end :

Début à 14 h le samedi :

Prise de contact et présentation de chacune

“Follow the Women”, c’est quoi ?

-          Présentation générale de FTW

-          Comment est né le projet ? l’expérience de 2004 et 2005

o        Témoignages, photos

o        Questions-réponses (organisation, difficulté, aspects matériels, sécurité…)

Follow the Women 2007:

-          Objectifs

-          Résumé des meetings de Bilbao et Damas

-          Pays traversés

Préparation :

-   Constitution et préparation de l’équipe française

-          Besoins financiers

-          Couverture médiatique

-          Structure support

-          Communication entre les participantes avant Avril 2007

Soirée :

Intervention à confirmer (apprentissage interculturel, femmes et méditerranée)

Dimanche matin :

Détente ballade à vélo ou à pied ou entraînement sportif avec 'coach'

Après-midi (jusqu’à 17h)

Préparation suite (organisation, qui fait quoi)

Bilan

Modalités pratiques :

La rencontre se déroulera le week-end des 9 et 10 septembre 2006 dans un gîte au sein d’une ancienne ferme à L'Abbaye de Frigolet - 13150 Tarascon.

Une réservation a été effectuée pour 16 lits ( en 3 chambres) et en fonction du nombre de participant(e)s, des hébergements supplémentaires pourront être trouvés.

Le site est très beau et calme, propice à la réflexion.

Pour plus d'informations consulter le site http://www.frigolet.com.

Prise en charge de l’hébergement et de la restauration par l’AFSCM.

Le transport le plus pratique est le TGV - Gare d'Avignon.

Frais de voyage à la charge de chaque participante. Si votre participation peut être compromise par un problème financier, merci de nous contacter afin que nous puissions ensemble trouver une solution.

Participation :

Merci de renvoyer la fiche de participation par mail avant le 20 juin 2006 à

Catherine GIRARD : c-girard@ti.com

Informations :

Catherine GIRARD : domicile : 04 93 07 62 44 ou gsm : 06 61 52 41 12

ou Emilie GUILLAUME : emilieguillaume@libertysurf.fr, gsm : 06 16 01 19 71

Nous vous confirmerons votre participation et les détails du week-end par mail durant l’été.

A très bientôt !

Comments

[Kevin]

Je suis arrive sur ce blog par hasard et je le trouve tres interessant ! A plus !

[Fred]

BRIEF HISTORY OF HOW “FOLLOW THE WOMEN” BEGAN

Everything begins with one thought. FOLLOW THE WOMEN began with one thought too, but many things had led up to that thought.

Detta Regan –

“Years ago when I was a youth worker I hosted a group of young people from Israel. It was the first time that I had met Israelis in my life- I knew nothing! When they visited me in Reading in the UK they were very dynamic and when they went home they sent me a fax wanting to do more exchanges.

Three weeks later I hosted a group of young of people from Palestine and they were very quiet.

I was showing off, taking then around our sports centre, showing them our theatre and so on when a man from Ramallah said “If we could just get our boys to play football and stop throwing stones.” It made me stop and think. I felt so small.

One of the boys told me that his father was in prison. A second boy told me that his father was also in prison, so I asked the third boy if his father was also in prison and he said “Of course.”

One of the adults who came was a man called Hassan Hulawani who was disabled down one side of his body – he would mention his ‘accident.’ He told me that he used to live in Jaffa but Polish Jews now lived in his house. He still had the key to the front door. He was a big tough man but as he told me this he began to cry and I thought “I know nothing.”

Some time later we did an exchange in Turkey with six youngsters from Israeli and six from Palestine. The youth exchanges were my first contact with adults in both countries.

Following that I made personal visits to Tel Aviv and Palestine. I was in Palestine during my birthday and my host said to me “We are going to visit Yasser Arafat.” He was sitting having breakfast when I met him and he wanted to talk about football! After that I went everywhere in Palestine; Nablus, Hebron, everywhere. I went to an ex-Israeli jail and I was struck by the similarity to Auschwitz.

Hassan Hulawani took us to Jerusalem and the traffic was really bad so we just abandoned the car. “This happens all the time” he said “The Israeli’s create roadblocks.” In Jerusalem everyone knew Hassan. He had been a youth worker and everywhere that he went people treated him with great respect.
Over lunch I asked him “What was your accident?”
He told me that he had been arrested by the Israeli’s and accused of being a being of the PLO. They held him down and hit him with an iron bar. They broke all his bones down one side of his body, put a bag on his head and put him in prison for eight years. When he told me about his tortures he was so matter of fact. When he was released from prison he worked with disabled children taking them horse-riding. One night the Isreali’s came at 4am, shot his horses and bulldozed his farm. Only one horse remained and he loved this horse. I said to him “You must hate the Israelis. What did you do?”
He looked at me and said “What can I do?”

In 2002 we did another youth exchange with people from Israel and Palestine, Greece and Turkey, and Northern and Southern Island.

Then I met Arafat a second time in Palestine and he said to me “Bring people here. Let them see the reality. Bring a group of women to Palestine”

Next I had to travel to Jordan to a conference about “Women Peace and Democracy” just as the Interfada started. I was moaning that I had been delayed for an hour at Paris airport when two women from Palestine arrived. Their car had been stopped and the driver arrested. They had travelled to the border on a donkey with their suitcases. The Israeli’s had closed Allenby Bridge and they spent the night with no food and no shelter. Again I felt very small. I wanted to tell the world about these women who had struggled so much to come to a meeting.

I thought if I could just bring Israelis and Palestinians together everything would be okay.

We kept in touch with the young people in Palestine and they emailed us telling us about their daily lives. One day we received an email from one of the young men who wrote “I am in my house in Jericho and the Israeli tanks are up my road. All the neighbourhood children are in my house because they are scared and we can hear the bullets. You have to tell the world what is going on.” We sent that email to everyone that we could think of.
That was not an isolated incident. Another woman told me that she and her friends in the Occupied Territories had to crawl under the windows to avoid sniper bullets. I wanted to do something to tell people what everyday life was like for ordinary Palestinians.

I was having dinner one evening with my daughter at a friend’s house and we were talking about holidays. My host said “You should go to Jordan” and someone else said “Go to Lebanon.” But I said “No, because we want to cycle and if I do that in the Middle East everyone will look at us.”

That is when I had the thought!

“That’s it! We’ll cycle in the Middle East and everyone will look at us and that’s how we can tell people what is going on.”

We got the maps out and realised that Mount Lebanon was in the way. So it was almost a joke at first. Then I started to talk to women about it and a few of us were up for it. Then people started to ask me difficult questions like “Where will the money come from?” “Where will the women come from?” “Will you be safe?” and I didn’t have any answers.

Next someone said “Princess Basma would be interested in this idea.” So I went to Jordan and met her and she was really enthusiastic. Then I was told that we couldn’t go to Syria because the men would laugh at us and throw stones at us. So I went to Syria and I was really surprised. I expected a really closed society but it was really open and really go-ahead. Someone said “If you get the support of the First Lady in Syria you’ll be okay” and that didn’t make sense to me because you would not go to the Queen in England and ask her for help.

Out of the blue I got a phone call from Mrs Al-Assad’s private security at 8am one Saturday morning saying that she was interested in the idea. Then Areeba called saying that Mrs Assad had asked if that company would sponsor the project. I did research on Areeba and discovered that they are a mobile phone company. Next there came questions of visas, peremission, passports etc.

I was in Sweden the day that the war in Iraq began and Ziad said “I’ll sort out Lebanon.” He helped with the support of the Palestinian Youth Organisation and Mrs Lahoud.

How we actually got it all together is still a mystery to me. How do you sleep 300 people? Where do you find 300 bikes? I went to Syria and met every Ministry there because it is important to have the backing of government ministries or nothing happens. So with a lot of support from many different people the first ride happened in 2004 and it was very successful.

We wanted to do a second ride but the death of Rafiq Harriri made cycling in Lebanon difficult. I didn’t know who to contact because the government had been disbanded and we had no financial or political support. The local women in Jordan did a great job and two weeks before the ride Queen Rania came on board at the last minute.

We also had no money. I wrote to various banks and other people and in the end Areeba paid the transport costs in Jordan and sorted out Lebanon and Syria too. There was one stage when FOLLOW THE WOMEN was never going to happen, there were no visas, no money and there were times when I wanted to say ‘Forget it!’ It was just too complicated and I would wake up in the middle of the night worrying about luggage labels!

I think we now have a solid basis with the support of Mrs Harriri, Mrs Al-Assad, and Queen Rania who all believe in the power of women.

The big thing is raising awareness. The initial aim was to bring people to the region and push the peace process between Palestine and Israel and a lot of other conflicts. So many young people in the region are affected by conflict and there are so many psychological problems and we wanted to help with counselling. Of course we know that there is conflict in many areas of the world but we are focussing on the Middle East. 200 plus women riding bicycles attracts attention and raises awareness.

I passionately believe in the power of women. If all women in the world work together we can effect change it is just a case of mobilising them and giving them a platform that they would not normally have. That is what the bike ride is – it is a moving seminar where women get the chance to talk to each other and learn what each others lives are like.

We have tried very hard to include Israelis in the rides but we couldn’t get even a group of six from Israel to go. We tried all our contacts and the Centre for Volunteerism and tried to get a sister ride in Israel. It wasn’t for want of trying and we will keep on trying.”

December 8th 2005