2007 Annual Report
learning together
Dialogue is an essential tool and practice in the struggle against injustice and indifference. Inter Pares creates opportunities for people to share skills and learning on issues that are of concern to all of us. Through roundtable events, learning circles, exchanges among counterparts, and community dialogues, we facilitate collective knowledge-creation and learning from each other's successes and failures, and support one another to address common challenges.
In September 2007, Inter Pares brought together fifteen women's rights activists from Africa, Asia and Latin America to engage in a dialogue on sexual violence against women in armed conflict with Canadian women's organizations, activists, researchers and policy makers. Participants compared experiences of the many manifestations of sexual violence against women, and on the strategies to address both the violence experienced in conflict and the violence that remains so pervasive in 'peacetime'. Although the women present recognized that they were acting in very different contexts, they also identified that their distinct struggles had commonalities. They agreed on the need to challenge militarization as a way of ending violence against women. As one participant declared, "In the end, we are all on the same plane. Some of us might be in first class with a bit more space, but we are all heading in the same direction."
Also in 2007, Inter Pares facilitated an exchange between the Coalition pour la préservation du patrimoine génétique africain (COPAGEN) and the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN), two activist networks defending the rights of farmers and citizens to determine what kind of food they want to produce and how they want to produce it. One point of convergence was the desire to put food sovereignty and Canada's role in agriculture on Canada's domestic and foreign policy agenda. COPAGEN has built and sustained a growing movement for food sovereignty in West Africa, and the learning that took place in this meeting was an important step in forming relationships of mutual support and collaboration between Canadian and West African farmers.
| Reviewed April 30, 2008 |  |
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