About the Video Makers

Our Fiscal Sponsor: Women Working for Change

Women Working for Change (WWC) is an international group of young women working as agents of social and environmental change who seek peer support and mentoring; dialogue on systemic contemporary crises; and articulation of concrete visions and actions for a sustainable and just future. Currently, we are composed of educators, lawyers, artists, ecologists, doctors, writers, community organizers, historians, public administrators, nutritionists, economists, and students from the United States, Mexico, Canada, Switzerland, Mongolia, and the Philippines.

What They Do

Peer Support: Young women often lack a peer group in the workplace or classroom willing to engage in discussions that reach beyond professional necessity, into the root causes of both the issues engaged and reasons for personally committing to their pursuit. When lucky enough to find that exchange with a friend, professor, or co-worker, it is often to these rare conversations that our memories turn when searching for motivation to continue. Women Working for Change gives its participants constant access to those conversations.

Mentoring: Young women also choose to participate in WWC because the organization recognizes the invaluable role of mentoring in the development of not only our viewpoints and tactics, but also our careers. WWC participants are emerging leaders in their communities, professions, and fields. Few would be this far along without the guidance of others more experienced than themselves, and most desire more active relationships with these mentors. Through WWCís Mentor Board, participants have consistent access to interaction and exchange with an array of older mentors from diverse backgrounds. Mentors offer participants assistance and guidance with professional issues including project evaluation, funding ideas, stumbling blocks, editing, scientific resources, and career choices, as well as providing an essential avenue to explore personal development.

Dialogue on contemporary crises: WWC also provides an avenue to start dialogue. The particular global and local crises that we each address in our work are connected by the globalization and dominance of Western culture and capitalism, which has often led to an increasing acceptance of disparity in access to resources and political participation in all levels of society and among societies ñ a trend which many of us work to counteract. This globalization manifests in the logic within which governments, individuals ñ and often even the organizations in which we find ourselves working ñ act. Developing an understanding about the systemic nature of contemporary crises is prerequisite to developing different strategies to overcome the homogenizing effects of this logic on responses to these crises. Through written reflection pieces and articles in semi-annual publications, WWC challenges participants to think about their work in this context.

The Conference: WWC aims to host a conference in Spring 2000 to address both personal and organizational capacity building. Personal capacity building will include trainings and workshops on skills related to our work, for example: fundraising for individuals and group projects, the legal framework of sexual harassment, stress management, and web page design. It will also include more intimate workshops on motivations for our work and addressing despair and empowerment. Organization building includes a strategic planning workshop for WWC to synthesize and concretize our vision, mission, goals, structure, policies and future activities. It may also include sessions on specific environmental or social justice issues participants want to address as a group, or in subgroups. The conference will also be the first opportunity for WWC participants as a group to interact with the Mentor Board, as the mentors provide lectures, workshops, and informal advising to individuals.

Women Working for Change is housed in the Womenís Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) at 355 Lexington Avenue, 3rd Floor, New York, New York 10017 USA. We are fiscally sponsored by JustAct (formerly the Overseas Development Network), a 501 (c)(3)organization. Contributions to Women Working for Change are tax-deductible. Women Working for Change Organizational Description