Many Highlights
I participated in the women’s workshops led by Diane Balser, the International Liberation Reference Person for Women, in Eswatini, Nigeria, and Kenya. I was on the team supporting Diane, together with Olivia Vincenti, Marion Ouphouet, and the organizers of each workshop—all of whom worked hard to make the workshops go well. Thanks also to Chioma Okonkwo, Area Reference Person for Lagos, Nigeria; Wanjiku Kironyo, Regional Reference Person for Northern Africa and East Africa; and Bafana Matsebula, Regional Reference Person for Southern Africa, for their support of the workshops.
I have many highlights. One is how Diane extended love and sisterhood to each of us at the workshops. She noted that every woman has had hard things happen to her and that we can discharge the distress. It can’t take away the wonderful things about being women.
She encouraged us to go back and look at what had happened to us as young girls. We get to fight for ourselves, together. To do this we need to build strong relationships, strong sisterhoods, with each other.
Societal hurts cause us to not think well, to act out distress patterns, and to repeat the same distressed behavior over and over again. Diane reminded us that the goal of Co-Counseling is to retain our humanness and intelligence and be able to think anew.
I gave talks on colonialism, racism, and the beautification industry. I reached out to, and built the foundations of Co-Counseling relationships with, several women from each of the countries.
Things are going well.
Nairobi, Kenya
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of women
(Present Time 193, October 2018)