FMLAs and Affiliates Continue to Fundraise for their March Delegations!
The University of Michigan Student Assembly passed a resolution last week to fund buses to take students to the "March for Women's Lives." The Student Assembly intends to foster social justice activism on campus by supporting efforts to mobilize hundreds of students to Washington DC for the March for Women's Lives. For more information on this story visit, http://www.michigandaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/4029cd89634d1 .
The University of Nebraska Omaha FMLA raised hundreds of dollars for their March organizing efforts by hosting a raffle of locally donated goods.
Help us Get Students to the March on Washington: Volunteer with FMF in DC and Los Angeles!
Are you looking for a way to make a difference and be part of history? Do you want to be more involved with the March for Women's Lives and help bring hundreds of thousands of activists to Washington, DC? Donate a week of your vacation time to volunteer with us! The March is quickly approaching, and we need your help to make it a huge success.
Volunteers in our Washington, DC and Los Angeles offices will phone bank, motivate and assist other feminists in organizing their own delegations, process new delegations, conduct grassroots outreach to campuses and feminist groups across the country, and more! We will train you -- no activist experience is required. We have space for volunteers at any time between now and the March, but we especially need people the week of April 18th-24th to help with last-minute organizing and preparations.
Do you have vacation time between now and the March? Volunteer at the Washington, DC and Los Angeles offices of the Feminist Majority Foundation for your Spring Break or vacation.
Help make this march the biggest and most memorable event in feminist history by donating your time and efforts to Feminist Majority Foundation as we prepare for the March for Women's Lives! For more information and to sign up, please contact Aimee Boone at aboone@feminist.org or at toll-free 866-444-3652.
Vote as if your life depended on it, It does
The FMF Get Out Her Vote Campaign is a nationwide drive to inspire young women on college campuses across the county to register and vote in the November 2004 elections.
By signing up your campus group as a Campus Voter Registration Team with the FMF's Get Out Her Vote Campaign (GOHV), you become part of a nationwide network of student-led teams on two and four year college campuses working to register and mobilize young women's votes in the 2004 elections. You'll receive all the GOHV Campaign materials and information you need to make your campus voter registration drive a success. And you will have access to campus voter registration experts at the Feminist Majority Foundation should you have any questions or run into any problems .
As an added incentive for your Campus Voter Registration Team, the Feminist Majority Foundation is sponsoring a Get Out Her Vote Contest - the top three Campus Voter Registration Teams that register the largest number of new voters will receive some fabulous prizes. For more information about the contest visit, www.getouthervote.com
If you are interested in organizing your group to register young women to vote on your campus, contact our GOHV campaign coordinator, Julia Miller, at jmiller@feminist.org
FMF West Coast Campus Team hosts Washington State Regional Training With Students Representing Over a Dozen Campuses
Dozens of students from all across Washington state convened in Seattle for the day-long Washington Feminist Leadership Summit and Activist Briefing. FMF West Coast Campus Staff Nisha Gulati, Jessie Raeder, and Rosemary Roberts, trained students and faculty on mobilizing for the Feminist Majority Foundation's Campus Get Out Her Vote campaign as well as the Campus Prescribe Choice Campaign for Emergency Contraception. Students took home action kits, materials, and supplies for Get Out Her Vote and Prescribe Choice, as well as the Study and Action Manual (http://www.feministcampus.org/know/sam/), Organizer's Binders for activist 101skills like fundraising and recruitment, as well as posters and t-shirts for added visibility. The West Coast Campus Team is gearing up for more statewide trainings to take place on Saturday February 21 st , in Arizona at Arizona State Main Campus in Tempe and in Oregon at Portland State University. There's still time to register for these all day trainings, contact the West Coast Campus Team at campusteam@feminist.org .
FMLAs and Affiliates Celebrate a Woman's Right to Vote by holding Iron Jawed Angels Screenings
"Iron Jawed Angels", a new HBO movie starring Oscar winner Hilary Swank, tells the inspiring story of the struggle for women's suffrage. FMLAs across the country from San Francisco to Cleveland commemorated the triumph of equal voting rights by throwing Iron Jawed Angels parties with feminist friends and group members.
Feminist Majority Leadership Alliances, affiliates, women's studies departments and other groups from campuses including UC Berkeley, San Francisco State University, Towson University, Case Western FMLA, Hamline University, California State University of Sacramento, UC San Diego among others, hosted screenings.
TAKE ACTION
Back Up Your Birth Control Day on March 22.
Host a Back Up Your Birth Control Day activity for women on your campus, and plaster your campus with our EC ads - "Condom Broke?" and "Birds do it, Bees do it," to educate students about where and when to use EC. Visit our Prescribe Choice website at www.prescribechoice.org for campaign updates and new materials. On this day of action, the FMF urges college students - especially young women - to educate themselves, as well as others, about the importance of emergency contraceptives.
Celebrate International Women's Day, March 8
On March 8, from Arizona to Afghanistan, feminists around the world will celebrate International Women's Day. Please take time that day to support global sisterhood by educating your campus on Bush's Global Gag Rule and the US administration's flagrant attempt to erode reproductive health abroad by cutting 38 million dollars from its expected UNFPA Funding. Women around the world need you to make a difference.
The FMF Affiliate at Amherst College is planning to promote global sisterhood, by raising consciousness about the unsolved brutal murders of hundreds of women in Juarez, Mexico, a US-Mexico border city. They will travel to Juarez, Mexico on International Women's Day. The group has already raised 2000 dollars and is currently seeking to raise an additional 4000 dollars to send members from Boston.
Feminist Majority Foundation's Campus Team has produced fact sheets on both the Global Gag Rule and the current Administration's action to withhold UNFPA funding, and will shortly finish and distribute fact sheets on the current status of women's rights in Afghanistan. We also have new international posters and informational materials for your campus. If you would like copies please contact your Campus Organizer at 866-444-3652 (east coast)
Celebrate National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers, March 10
The Reproductive Freedom Task Force of Refuse & Resist! invite the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance and affiliates to participate in this year's National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers (http://www.refuseandresist.org/ab/march10/2004/index.html) on March 10. For the past 8 years, pro-choice organizations and campus groups across the country have celebrated this day to highlight the positive role abortion providers play in women's reproductive choices. The Day of Appreciation has been unique in joining individuals and organizations to reach out and thank the providers - doctors and clinic workers - without whom our efforts to secure the right to choose would be futile. Particularly this year, in the shadow of the federal abortion procedure ban, our providers especially need to feel community support.
Participating is simple, and groups have celebrated this day with events ranging from simple thank you cards for local providers to more involved participation with on-going weekend clinic defense. Refuse and Resist will provide organizing support to student groups and individuals, with created these organizing kits (http://www.refuseandresist.org/ab/march10/2004/organizers.html) available online.
For more information on the National Day of Appreciate for Abortion Providers visit, http://www.refuseandresist.org/ab/march10/2004/index.html.
COMMUNITY NEWS
20th Annual COOL Idealist To Take Place in Philadelphia
Don't miss the 20th annual COOL Idealist National Conference, a gathering of 2,000 college student leaders, nonprofit professionals, service program members, and campus staff at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, March 12-14, 2004. Participate in an exciting array of more than 150 workshops and program offerings related to service, activism, politics, and socially responsible careers. The Feminist Majority Foundation Campus team is presenting a workshop, Feminist Activism: Getting Out Her Vote, and tabling at the conference. Visit http://wwwcool2serveorg/events/conference/2004/Home.htm for more information.
Hope to see you there!
The Choices E-zine is a bi-monthly
e-zine intended to keep members of the Feminist Majority
Leadership Alliances, the Feminist Faculty and Student
Networks, and the online Choices Campus Community
connected with each other, informed of feminist issues
and events, and prepared to take action.
To
start a group on your campus or for more information,
please email CampusTeam@feminist.org or call
a Campus Organizer toll-free at (866) 444-FMLA.
Please let us know about your Leadership Alliance
actions and accomplishments so that we can include
you in our next newsletter and share your great ideas!
Email us about your successful events or upcoming
events, campusteam@feminist.org!
February 23, 2004