Launching Our 2020 Solidarity Event Season

Graphic from the 75th Anniversaries Working Group toolkit, ReThinkMedia.

By Cherrill Spencer and Margaret Pecoraro
Co-coordinators of the Ceasefire/75th Solidarity Event Planning Team

July 2020

In recent years, solidarity events have been chosen by WILPF US and branches to create a unified WILPF presence. We are announcing the launch of the first solidarity event in 2020, which we hope all branches will take part in, with our event planning team’s help.

We have three umbrella themes that were agreed upon at the ONE-WILPF phone call in June: 

• the Global Ceasefire request by the UN Secretary General, 
• the 75th anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, 
• the founding of the United Nations in 1945.

Rather than have a one weekend solidarity event, our planning team, coordinated by Cherrill Spencer (Peninsula/Palo Alto, CA branch) and Margaret Pecoraro (Tucson, AZ branch) have decided to have a “solidarity season,” lasting from August 6 to September 2, called the “Ceasefire/75^th Solidarity Season” for short. 

This extended period will allow branches to choose from several recommended topics, including some not tied to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings which can occur after August 9, such as: 

• connecting militarism to ecological devastation; 
• the recent rumors of resuming nuclear bomb testing; and 
• Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons bills in the House and Senate.

There are many different types of activities that branches and members-at-large can carry out as they commemorate past historical events or seek to educate themselves and their local communities about newer topics, such as why we need ceasefires in the myriad conflicts happening around the world as virtually all countries deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Your busy planning team is drawing up a long list of types of activities your branch could do, including many that you can do sitting at home while you need to shelter-in-place from COVID-19. We are writing resource guides for these activities, so you don’t have to do lots of research to find out, for example, how to use peace cranes, hold a peace fast, or get a Hiroshima-legacy gingko tree planted in your local public park. 

Your branch contact will have heard from the solidarity event planning team with lots of information before you read this eNews, and they will be receiving by email, around July 10th, many resource materials for early August events. 

Please plan for your branch to hold at least one solidarity event this season.

In keeping with many customary seasons, we have some pre-season events that all WILPF members can participate in from their comfy chairs at home. We invite you to attend some webinars held via Zoom about the history of the United Nations and the very first nuclear explosion that happened in New Mexico. You will find all the details, Zoom links and the link to the 1945 timeline the DISARM Issue Committee has created in this month’s eNews article.

Dear WILPFers, it is 75 years since two nuclear bombs were exploded over two Japanese cities full of civilians. Some survived and are #stillhere, but in diminishing numbers. Let us work together to rid the world of the scourge of nuclear weapons that are #stillhere in enormous numbers threatening the whole world now. 

Please take part in our Ceasefire/75^th Solidarity Season! Be on the lookout for emails from cherrill.m.spencer (at) gmail.com.