Presentation Letter

Dear friends,

we propose you to take part and prepare with us the International Meeting of Women in Black (and not only) that will be held in Italy from 21st to 25th of August 2003.

For the first time since ten years, our meeting move out of Balkans, and a group of italian women in black will manage the coordination of the preparatory activities; we care about to weave the WiB's net all over the world, in order to grant the presence of all regions, and that all have voice and participate in the construction of this event. More over, we would like that the future meeting were open, as the previous ones, to the participation of women which share with us choices, actions and engagements.

The program of the meeting is not yet defined because we would like to build it together; we discussed about this item in the recent meeting in Firenze, where Italian, Spanish, Israeli, Palestinian, Croate, Bosnian, Serbe women were present. You will found attached the proposal for the discussion themes. They are intentionally general, they will be the frame which each group of WiB will refer to, finding their particular items and their point of view, starting from their own experiences, considerations and differences of one's own situation. Our idea is that the work days during the August meeting were split in two parts, the morning to deal with the general themes in a plenary assembly, the afternoon to deepen the work with discussions in small workshops.

For the preparatory work, this is our proposal, shared in the meeting held in Firenze on 26-27 October:

• to spread and discuss the themes and the proposal in the WiB's net of your regions;
• to let us know, by the end of January 2003, which speeches you want to hold at the meeting, and about which particular items;
• which women "not in black" you like to invite, which you have relations with, you share actions and commitments, and whose contribution you think worth to be known.
• We ask you to choose, for these months of common work, who will be the reference point for communications inside your region; in order to coordinate with us the exchange of information and documents, and to manage the concrete organization of the meeting.

For our part, we undertake to transform the contribution of you all in the detailed meeting program we will send to you, to review it together It would be very important that your speeches were written and translated two months before the meeting, so that they can circulate on the whole net. Some other concrete and important items. An "Artistic Section" will be present, that Marisa Manno, WiB of Napoli, has offered to coordinate.

A press conference will take place at the beginning and at the end of the meeting, and a general meeting opportunity In order to have a good organization, we need to know as soon as possible the number, even if rough, of the women that will take part from each region, and the language(s) for the translations. We know that the meeting will be very expensive; we will manage to find funds in Italy as far as possible, but it is necessary that the women of each region engage themselves, to find ways of self-funding and mutual support, to grant a level-headed participation, especially of women coming from difficult places, that have more difficulties to afford the travel and their stay in Italy.