Workshops

In this workshop, we will first watch video messages from women in the Middle East who are facing war in their countries and resisting forced migration. We will then invite women from different regions of the world to discuss: how do we support womens’ struggles in their territories?  

We conclude with organisations that are fighting against modern slavery and labor exploitation of migrant women to discuss: what are women’s needs for preventing this situation?

In this workshop, we will invite women from different organisations to share their experience around these questions:

– Why do we need to develop the subject of women’s liberation in all kinds of collective organisation? Why is it important to build autonomous women’s structures alongside organisations with all genders? How can we show the need for this and make it understandable?

– What happens when women organise together? What strength does this give to the women and the collective in general? What difficulties do women face when they want to develop women’s freedom struggle and organisation within these collectives?

– How do we keep the “jinergy” (women’s strength and creativity) alive, and overcome difficulties with a long term perspective?

In the second part, we will discuss around this topics collectively, bringing together common ideas, analyses and practices. With these, we aim to understand how we can organise in the frame of International Democratic Confederalism in order to build and strengthen our common struggle for the freedom of women and autonomous women’s organisations.

In this workshop we want to highlight some of the health perspectives and practices belonging to society, to the people, not to the patriarchal and capitalist system.

This praxis never disappeared. Health issues are intertwined with the lives, experiences and knowledge of women. Women are the providers of care in private and public spaces but our work and wisdom is invisibilised and dispossessed by the capitalist system.

We invite women that work and struggle in this specific field to share different health perspectives and practices. With this inspiration we will discuss the political and social stakes as well as how to draw a roadmap that once again foregrounds women to liberate the field of health.

As women who re-construct an alternative, new world, we come together in this workshop to reflect how we organise our own economies, based on the principles of autonomy and collaboration among and of the commons. We invite women who are already experiencing this new life and practising the tools needed to be able to sustain its ongoing fruition.

There may be many theories, concepts and debates regarding how to describe the economy since the beginning of modern history. However, we would like to explore together the meaning of economy for each us and ask: how do we build along these perspectives in our territories?

We invite participants to send us in advance, if they would like to, some written words or sentences about this topic by email before the conference (email : economy.workshop.2022@gmail.com) so that we can use these entries/inputs as common material to initiate discussion..

In order to identify both differences and commonalities in our perspectives, we are asking:

• Is it possible to overcome the obstacles of capitalist classical economy and to reclaim our own common language among women?
• How do we organise-or should we organise- alternatives that are not complicit in the exploitation of nature and all living species?
• What is the role of women and women’s organisations in this assembling process of a new social/communal economy?

Last, but not least, in line with the main goal of the conference:

• How can we join women’s struggles all around the world together in order to establish women’s Confederalism? What are the possible paths that could lead us towards this aim?

The first attack of the dominant male mentality, which legitimises and maintains its own supremacy as the Ultimate Truth, was towards nature and women. The domination and subordination of nature means an attack on women’s identity and the moral sustainability of life. Today, we can see ruthless appropriation and exploitation of nature and resources leads to many natural disasters. The ecological crisis has come onto humanity’s agenda as one of the most urgent global crises.

The domination, oppression and exploitation of women and nature are fundamentally interconnected under a violent and hierarchical system of power. Therefore, the starting point for this discussion is the inseparability of ecological struggles and womens liberation, against capitalist patriarchy: the character of our age will be determined by the struggle against the ecological destruction of the patriarchal-capitalist system.

Despite all this destruction, stories of those who reject capitalist modernity in different parts of the world, including Kurdistan, continue to inspire us.

In this workshop, we would like to share some of these experiences that maintain social relations by integrating them with nature. 

The ecology workshop intends to address both ecological destruction and gender inequality, which are the basis of social inequality and injustice.

The following critically urgent and related questions will be examined :

– What should be women’s perspective in approaching the ecological struggle?

– How can we develop an ecological struggle that includes the freedom of society and gender?

– How we can raise the fight against ecological destruction, both theoretically and practically?

What is the importance of language and culture for the identity and the struggle of people for their existence? What relationship and what role have women had, and still have, in the defence of language and culture? What have been the methods and strategies that people have created to protect their language and culture and transmit it to the new generations?

These will be the main topics we will address in this workshop, sharing the experience developed by oppressed peoples around the world. We will then have the opportunity to discuss and deepen together the importance of the defence of language and culture in the struggle for freedom, and the connection that we have especially as women.

We also invite you to bring a small piece of paper with a word in a native language of the territory you come from to share it in the space of the workshop with the other participants.

Antifascist struggle is part of the fight against the capitalist, colonial and patriarchal system, and against violent attacks on the body and the rights of women. Building our resistance against fascism is a crucial part of paving the way to liberation.

Women have taken a historical and important role in the struggle against fascism. In the present day, fascism is searching for a new way to shape the mentality and politics of our societies.

Our aim is the creation of an Antifascist Women’s Front, to make visible the on attacks women, and to share and learn about methods of self-defence in different territories.

Why do we need to identify fascism and make it visible? This step is crucial in order to build unity and advance our shared struggle. It is important to have a common understanding of the old and new tools of fascism, and to share and build methods and tools for the fight. Fascism is a common enemy: violating human life and spreading fear and fragmentation in society.

In this workshop we will discuss the following questions: what is fascism, and how does it cut across nationalism, totalitarianism and racism? How does it influence our societies? How does it impact the lives and rights of women and other non-compliant subjects? We will hear experiences of resistance from different territories with the aim of arriving at practical steps for building an Antifascist Women’s Front, on the path to Worldwide Women’s Democratic Confederalism.

The objective of this workshop focused on education is to share and reflect on different contemporary revolutionary educational initiatives.

During the session, we will hear from four projects around the world that will share from first hand experience.

After hearing and being inspired by these experiences we will talk about the main aims, methods, difficulties and results of different educational experiences and practices participants are familiar with. This debate aims to find commonalities and connections and to go further in building a political and ethical society.