2 Veteran Women Activists Speak on: Women’s rights, climate change

2 Veteran Women Activists Speak on: Women’s rights, climate change

From right: Sandra Moran, Carmen Diaz and Helena Wong.
(Photos: Leah Woolner)

(Exclusive to The Philippine Reporter)

By Leah Woolner

MONTREAL–Last week in Montreal, a reception was held for two prominent, social justice activists, Sandra Moran and Helena Wong. Although both Moran and Wong were visiting Montreal to attend a conference hosted by the Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education, the activists also received a warm welcome from local supporters.

Members of the Montreal Filipino community, as well as the Filipino solidarity community, were present at the reception and demonstrated a keen interest in issues presented by the activists, such as women’s rights and climate change.

Various organizations in Montreal, including PINAY, the South Asian Women’s Community Center, the International Women’s Alliance and the Women’s Federation of Quebec, organized a special reception for Moran and Wong to discuss their ongoing work, as well as their involvement with the World March of Women (WMW)—an internationally held and locally organized, solidarity march that occurs every 5 years on March 8th. According to the Women’s Federation of Quebec, the WMW grew out of a women’s movement against poverty that began in Quebec in 1995, and led to the infamous “March for Bread and Roses” across Canada in the following year. Many of the organizations that attended the reception are also participants in Quebec’s WMW.

Moran, native to Guatemala, has been a leading voice in defending human rights and an advocate for women’s issues in her home country since the 1980s. Due to her activism, Moran was forced to spend 14 years in exile, during which she lived in different Latin American countries and also in Canada as a refugee, before eventually returning to Guatemala. She was at the forefront of a nationwide campaign for women’s access to social and political rights, which greatly influenced the country’s policies at the turn of the 21st Century.

Attendees at the Montreal reception for Moran and Wong

Currently, Moran’s work has been focused on ending gender-based violence, which she states is a “prominent social problem” in Guatemala. “Violence against women and children is normalized,” she said. “Guatemalan authorities need to respond to reports of physical and sexual assault…they need to take it seriously.”

According to the Philippine Commission on Women, similar problems with violence against women are present in the Philippines; the Philippine National Statistics Office found in a 2008 Demographic and Health Survey that one in five Filipino women between the ages of 15-49 have experienced physical violence. The Canadian Women’s Foundation reports that a 2005 Statistics Canada Survey found that half of all women in Canada have experienced physical or sexual violence since the age of 16. As such, the work of Moran has importance for those individuals or organizations that work within their respective communities to address gender-based violence.

Wong, who lives in New York City, is known for her organizing efforts against neighborhood gentrification and raising awareness on environmental issues that affect Asian and minority communities. She has connections with Gabriela USA chapters, as well as the Filipino community in New York. Wong currently works for Grassroots Global Justice, an alliance of community-based organizations across the United States that is working to develop sustainable and local development strategies in order to combat and adjust to climate change.

At the reception, Wong provided insight on tackling the issue of climate change and described the importance of other efforts in the same domain to occur worldwide, including in the Philippines.

Due to its physical geography and as an island nation, the Philippines often experiences extreme weather events and natural disasters, such as Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) in 2013, which caused an estimated total of 6,193 deaths, according to the Philippines’ National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, and displaced an approximately 4.1 million people, as reported by USAID.

To date, climate change continues to be a major concern for the Philippines, as written by the Philippines Climate Change Commission, which posts on their website that they have seven ongoing “areas” for “climate change action” that include “food security, water sufficiency, ecological stability, human security, climate smart industries, sustainable energy, as well as knowledge and capacity development.”

In discussing their work, Moran and Wong were able to shed light on the importance of community-based efforts to be able to influence larger social change. The activists expressed their gratitude for receiving such as warm welcome, and urged the attendees to continue supporting international solidarity work.