Fundraising for Sisters

There is a park near where I live, and I try these days to come here every day. I always, all of the time, every day, think about you, my World Pulse sisters, and about everyone who is here on this online site, how grateful I am that we can all be together. And I think of how I can walk safely, relatively safely, at least in the daytime, and no one will be beating me up for having this time to myself, and I am aware of the billions of women and girls who are working, for free, and who have nothing, or will have nothing if their husbands die, or have to run from violence, for their lives. Women who then have to live with fewer options or no options compared to men, in particular very rich white men, and men who have been taught that they have the right to own and use the free labour of women. Men who make all the decisions of what the rules are, the men in the world who have created this system, and benefit from this system.  And I think about my life as a girl, and as a woman, and how so many of you don't have this, a park, and enough food at the moment, and to be able to just walk. I gather my energy, and think, and I am thinking of all the mothers taking care of children, taking care of everyone, everywhere. And I think every day how grateful I am that we now have World Pulse so that we can work on this together.

I have had the freedom to do pretty much what I want with my life, and to sit by myself in a park, usually with nobody bothering me. Not like most of my World Pulse sisters. I have a place to live, and my family and friends here have places to live. Many of you, my sisters, have been having to put on hold your work getting girls into school, training women into paid work, and instead are having to find ways to solve new life threatening emergencies. You, dear sisters, have been working on resolving so many injustices, time after time healing or helping a sister gain some degree of safety and freedom. We women have been calling for these changes for a very long time, over centuries. And now you have had to shift from what you were doing, to save lives in your communities, because of all the people who have no food, and so many who have no water, because of this disastrous economic system that has been forced on us, and with an epidemic added.

I think about how we all, in World Pulse know in our bones that we have found such a treasure in each other, that we are and have been working together to end violence against women and girls, violence which has only increased in this pandemic. And we witness the  money that is needed for World Pulse sisters to do all of this tending to people, with all of the added emergencies, this money being ‘wheeled and dealed’ behind the scenes to manipulate the stock market to keep rich people getting richer. 

I sit in this park and I watch for the second day in a row, a father allowing his boy to throw rocks at the innocent ducks with their babies, and I call on men who allow this to stop teaching boys to do harm, and to teach them instead the joy of being gentle and loving. I think of the men who are here with us in World Pulse, who are working with us, standing strongly as men who value a world in which women and girls are respected and everyone is loved, and I urge all men to learn from these brothers who understand what we are working for together, a world in which everyone and our beloved Earth is loved and cared for.

I think every day, all the time of all of you, and of our sisterhood of leadership, leadership that continues to be silenced, even as more and more women and girls are being stolen, sold, beaten, tortured and killed, and in whatever ways prevented from being able to choose their lives, to live freely, and with access to money. Women, the population most often beaten and kept without money, in a money-driven system, ridiculed for our work, working within this framework of violence, finding ways to do this work, and knowing how much more we would accomplish if we had access to money. Mothers trying to make sure that everyone has what they need, working to fix this mess, so often in lives of captivity, no access to money. Women in war zones and refugee camps created by men, needing money for food. For the children. Money to be shared with everyone. And still the news of beatings, tortures, murders, daily. 

In the same newscasts, in sickening contrast, we have two men poised to be the first trillionaires. This being the reason for so much resistance to women being free. Because we see a different way. Because this system is built on a very few getting disgustingly rich while so many people, doing such hard labour, the vast majority who are doing the work, are held captive, violated, kept in poverty. 

And I call on Government officials who are complicit in where all this money goes. First on the list must be this: a safe space for every woman and girl according to what she wants and needs, the basic right to go to school, to ownership, to the right to choose what we do with our lives, the right to be safe every minute of our lives, and the right to what is ours. Whether it be home, money, land or our very own children. 

It is here within World Pulse and in other sister groups that I find the people who want this too, and who love women, and girls, and are working for everyone to have enough food and a safe place to live. And while we are working on these changes, this is a call for everyone who at the moment has enough food and shelter, and clean water, to think about starting up or expanding Funding Circles, and by Funding Circles I mean reaching out to everyone in our lives who we think might join in on this gathering of funds because they are able to, and they may know others who can, and they want to be a part of this change. To reach out to people who run Non Profit Agencies, to let them know about World Pulse sisters, and to let them know we want to build ways to get money to women doing this work, and that we could use mentorship in making this grow. Supporting these sisters who suddenly have had lives shifted from doing everything to save women’s lives, to now prioritizing saving lives of entire communities.

I am looking for friends and family, especially my white friends and family, who have enough food and safe places to live, to share money with these World Pulse sisters, so that they can bring water, masks and food to these communities, and information to people who have not even been told that COVID-19 is happening. This is why Funding Circles are so important now, to send to sisters, for whatever they need. And to keep these sisters fed and strong and safe while they are doing this work.

And I hope that the men in my life, friends and family, will speak out about our current world where women are not free of violence, and mostly no access to money, and honour and recognize that women are holding this world together. And I hope that these brothers will interrupt the ridiculing and silencing of women who insist on talking about this dangerous and cruel global society we live in, knowing from our stories in World Pulse exactly what is happening, where, and to who. Let’s get the funding, every bit of funding needed, directly to these World Pulse sisters, so that they can save lives in their communities right now, while we all collectively figure outa better system. 

What really disturbs me is that we are given the same excuses and non action we heard and experienced in the 1960’s and 1970’s. After all these years, the same false promises from the UN and our Governments. But now through World Pulse we have a direct line, right into the hands of World Pulse women doing the work. Doing it out of that mix of fury that this is happening, women being controlled, tortured, murdered, and doing it out of love.  

We are so much stronger together now than we were, in our work to bring about a different way of treating the Earth and each other, a different world economy, ending this current global economy that produces multi billionaires, with the shaking hands behind closed doors in tax free zones to protect the obscene selfishness. In a global society that depends on the free labour of women not only to do most of the work, not only to be loving mothers to everyone, but also to be caught busy and exhausted responding to the torture and murder of women and girls, every day.

We have been and are working to fix this, literally saving lives, building pathways for women and girls to freedom - our free labour - because our hearts cannot bear what we see, what we know, what we are living our lives to change. Respect for women and girls, and a world in which no man or boy is expected or allowed to show manhood by harming us.

It has taken a few days to get this written. Usually when I write, it flows in one day. This one is hard, and I realized that it is hard because I do not want this call for action to fail, and because I know that so many who want to make this happen and who are already working on it, can’t afford to contribute more than they already are. We need expansion.

We need to get funding to the sisters who are doing this, solving this world’s emergency for free, and who are now focussed on saving lives during this pandemic. Again, this is a call in particular to my white sisters and brothers. We need to find ways to send money directly to the women doing this work. Think about what you can do. What a larger circle of friends and family can do. What people in your workplace can do. Link us up to NonProfits who will send donations to World Pulse sisters. Link us up to people who can help us learn how to create ways to get money to World Pulse sisters. Our World Pulse organization has been and is doing what it can. Send in a donation to World Pulse, too. Become a sustaining member. And then create a Funding Circle, or a NonProfit, or offer any way possible to support these sisters who are lovingly mothering the people in their closest communities who have the least. In World Pulse we know the power of helping each other. Join us in whatever way you can. We are determined to create a new way of being with each other in this world. It begins with saving lives.